Nadia Boulanger
Encyclopedia
Nadia Boulanger (ʒy.ljɛt na.dja bu.lɑ̃.ʒe; 16 September 188722 October 1979) was a French composer, conductor and teacher who taught many composers and performers of the 20th century.
From a musical family, she achieved early honours as a student at the Paris Conservatoire, but believing that her talent as a composer was inferior to that of her younger sister Lili
, she gave up composing and became a teacher. In that capacity she influenced generations of young composers, including many from the U.S., beginning with Aaron Copland
. Among her other students were those who became leading soloists and conductors, including Dinu Lipatti
, Igor Markevitch
and Ástor Piazzolla
.
Boulanger taught in the U.S. and in England, working with music academies including the Juilliard School
, the Yehudi Menuhin School
, the Longy School
, the Royal College of Music
and the Royal Academy of Music
, but her principal base for most of her life was her family's flat in Paris, where she taught for most of the seven decades from the start of her career until her death at the age of 92.
Boulanger was the first woman to conduct many major orchestras in America and Europe, including the BBC Symphony
, Boston Symphony
, Hallé
, New York Philharmonic
and
Philadelphia
orchestras. She conducted several world premieres, including works by Copland and Stravinsky
.
. Her grandfather, Frédéric Boulanger, won first prize for the cello in his fifth year (1797) at the recently founded Paris Conservatoire. Her father, Ernest Boulanger (1815–1900), entered the Conservatoire at the age of 16, studying piano, violin, and composition. In 1835, he won the Conservatoire's top prize, the Prix de Rome
, for a one-act opera, Le Diable à l'École (The Devil at School). He later taught singing at the Conservatoire. In 1874, while he was performing in Russia, he met a young, married Russian schoolteacher, Raissa Suvalov (née Myschetsky). She moved to Paris to attend his singing class at the Conservatoire, and in 1877 they married; she was aged 20 and he 62. Their first child, Juliette Nadia Boulanger was born in Paris ten years later. By her sixth birthday, she was studying music under her mother's tutelage. A second child, Lili, was born in 1893. The aging father asked Nadia to promise to look after the newborn girl for the rest of her life.
Boulanger entered the Conservatoire at the age of 10, studying harmony with Paul Vidal
and composition with Charles Marie Widor and Gabriel Fauré
; she also studied the organ privately with Louis Vierne
and Félix-Alexandre Guilmant. While still a student at the Conservatoire, she became the family's only breadwinner on the death of her father in 1900. She began taking engagements as a pianist, and teaching private students in the family's new flat in the rue Ballu, where she continued to live and teach until her death more than 75 years later. Among her early pupils was her younger sister, Lili, who studied counterpoint with her. In 1906, Boulanger became Fauré's assistant at the great organ of the Église de la Madeleine
. She remained a lifelong devotee of his music and later introduced his Requiem
to several cities in Britain and the U.S.
After winning the Conservatoire's top prizes for harmony, counterpoint, fugue, organ and piano accompaniment, Boulanger came to wider public attention in 1908, when, in a preliminary round for the Prix de Rome, she submitted a fugue for string quartet, rather than for voices as specified, causing a stir in musical circles. Despite objections from at least one examiner, she was allowed to progress to the final round, and was placed second with her cantata La sirène. She failed to win the Premier Grand Prix the following year also, even though on both occasions she was generally acknowledged to have written the best cantata. Her younger sister Lili, who was, as Boulanger acknowledged, the more talented composer, won the Premier Grand Prix de Rome in 1913, the first woman composer to do so. By that time, Nadia was firmly established as a teacher, and had little time to compose.
, for whom she composed a Fantaisie variée for piano and orchestra. The opera was due to be staged in 1914, but owing to Pugno's death and events leading up to World War I, it was never performed. A complete vocal score and the orchestration of Acts 1 and 3 survive. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
says of Boulanger's music, "Her musical language is often highly chromatic (though always tonally based), and Debussy's influence is apparent … her self-critical attitude (the Fantaisie variée bears signs of extensive revision and is not performable in its present state) led her to concentrate on teaching." Most of her compositions date from before her younger sister's triumph at the Prix de Rome. Lili had never been healthy, and in 1918 she died. After Lili's death, Nadia abandoned composition, publishing only a few songs in 1922, and then nothing more. Fauré believed she was mistaken to stop composing, but she told told him, "If there is one thing of which I am certain, it is that my music is worthless."
Boulanger, who liked to be known as "Mademoiselle", made her conducting debut in 1912. She was the first woman to conduct several major symphony orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic
, the Boston Symphony Orchestra
, the Philadelphia Orchestra
, and in England the Hallé Orchestra of Manchester
and the BBC Symphony Orchestra
. On her first American tour she premiered Aaron Copland
's "Symphony for Organ and Orchestra." 1937 she became the first woman to conduct a complete concert of the Royal Philharmonic Society
in London. In 1938 she directed the first performance of Stravinsky’s Concerto, Dumbarton Oaks in Washington DC.
As a performer she made few recordings. In 1937 HMV
issued three sets of discs featuring her: the Piano Concerto in D by Jean Françaix
, which she conducted; the Brahms
Liebeslieder Waltzes, in which she and Dinu Lipatti
were the duo pianists with a vocal ensemble; and the first recordings of any music by Monteverdi: a selection of his madrigals, which she directed.
described Boulanger as "the most influential teacher since Socrates
." She taught a very large number of students from Europe, Australia, and Canada, as well as over 600 American musicians. However, neither she nor Annette Dieudonné, her life-long friend and assistant, kept records of the students who studied with her. It is, moreover, virtually impossible to determine the nature and extent of many musicians' private study with Boulanger, ranging from prolonged and intensive tuition to brief, informal advice.
Boulanger's first teaching position was at the Conservatoire Femina-Musica in Paris in 1907. Later, she was one of the first staff members at Alfred Cortot's
École Normale de Musique de Paris
, beginning in 1920, where she taught a large variety of subjects. She was disappointed at not winning an appointment to the faculty of the Conservatoire, but in 1921 she was invited to join the first faculty of the Conservatoire Américain at Fontainebleau
. This was a summer school, sponsored by American donors, at which Boulanger taught harmony, counterpoint, and composition under the directorship of Paul Dukas
. Among her first pupils there was Aaron Copland
, who was followed by many other young American composers. Some of her students, including Copland, Quincy Jones
, Denoe Leedy, Walter Piston
, George Peter Tingley, Roy Harris
, Virgil Thomson
, Louise Talma, Michel Legrand
,Charles Fox, Joe Raposo
, Astor Piazzolla, Philip Glass
, Russell Woollen
, Robert Shafer, and Elliott Carter
established a new school of composition based on her teaching. Virgil Thompson once said that every town in the United States had a five-and-dime and a Boulanger pupil. Boulanger eventually became director of the Conservatoire Américain in 1948. She also taught at the Longy School of Music
and the Paris Conservatoire. She lived in the U.S. during World War II
and taught at Wellesley College, Radcliffe College
, and the Juilliard School
.
Boulanger's European students included Igor Markevitch
, Jean Françaix
, Francis Chagrin
, Lennox Berkeley
, and Donald Covert. In England she taught at the Yehudi Menuhin School
, and gave lectures on a wide range of music topics at the Royal College of Music
and the Royal Academy of Music
which were broadcast nationally by the BBC
. She also served on the juries of international piano competitions including, in 1966, the International Tchaikovsky Competition
in Moscow, chaired by Emil Gilels
.
Boulanger's teaching methods included traditional harmony, score reading at the piano, species counterpoint, analysis, and sight singing (using fixed-Do solfège
). She disapproved of innovation for innovation's sake: "When you are writing music of your own, never strain to avoid the obvious." "You need an established language and then, within that established language, the liberty to be yourself. It's always necessary to be yourself – that is a mark of genius in itself."
Even though her eyesight and hearing began to fade towards the end of her life, Boulanger worked almost until her death in 1979.
From a musical family, she achieved early honours as a student at the Paris Conservatoire, but believing that her talent as a composer was inferior to that of her younger sister Lili
Lili Boulanger
Lili Boulanger was a French composer, the younger sister of the noted composer and composition teacher Nadia Boulanger.-Early years:A Parisian-born child prodigy, who was good at piano...
, she gave up composing and became a teacher. In that capacity she influenced generations of young composers, including many from the U.S., beginning with Aaron Copland
Aaron Copland
Aaron Copland was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later in his career a conductor of his own and other American music. He was instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition, and is often referred to as "the Dean of American Composers"...
. Among her other students were those who became leading soloists and conductors, including Dinu Lipatti
Dinu Lipatti
Dinu Lipatti was a Romanian classical pianist and composer whose career was cut short by his death from Hodgkin's disease at age 33. He was elected posthumously to the Romanian Academy.-Biography:...
, Igor Markevitch
Igor Markevitch
Igor Markevitch was a Ukrainian, Italian, and French composer and conductor.- Origin :Igor Markevich was born in Kiev, to an old family of Ukrainian Cossack starshyna ennobled in the 18th century...
and Ástor Piazzolla
Ástor Piazzolla
Ástor Pantaleón Piazzolla was an Argentine tango composer and bandoneón player. His oeuvre revolutionized the traditional tango into a new style termed nuevo tango, incorporating elements from jazz and classical music...
.
Boulanger taught in the U.S. and in England, working with music academies including the Juilliard School
Juilliard School
The Juilliard School, located at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City, United States, is a performing arts conservatory which was established in 1905...
, the Yehudi Menuhin School
Yehudi Menuhin School
The Yehudi Menuhin School is a specialist music school in Surrey, England. It was founded in 1963 by the violinist Yehudi Menuhin.The School also gives pupils the best musical education any specialist schools can with a number of internationally main teachers, Simon Fischer , Natalya Boyarskaya ,...
, the Longy School
Longy School of Music
The Longy School of Music of Bard College is a conservatory located near Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1915, it was one of the four independent degree-granting music schools in the Boston region along with the New England Conservatory, Berklee College of Music, and Boston...
, the Royal College of Music
Royal College of Music
The Royal College of Music is a conservatoire founded by Royal Charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, England.-Background:The first director was Sir George Grove and he was followed by Sir Hubert Parry...
and the Royal Academy of Music
Royal Academy of Music
The Royal Academy of Music in London, England, is a conservatoire, Britain's oldest degree-granting music school and a constituent college of the University of London since 1999. The Academy was founded by Lord Burghersh in 1822 with the help and ideas of the French harpist and composer Nicolas...
, but her principal base for most of her life was her family's flat in Paris, where she taught for most of the seven decades from the start of her career until her death at the age of 92.
Boulanger was the first woman to conduct many major orchestras in America and Europe, including the BBC Symphony
BBC Symphony Orchestra
The BBC Symphony Orchestra is the principal broadcast orchestra of the British Broadcasting Corporation and one of the leading orchestras in Britain.-History:...
, Boston Symphony
Boston Symphony Orchestra
The Boston Symphony Orchestra is an orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts. It is one of the five American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1881, the BSO plays most of its concerts at Boston's Symphony Hall and in the summer performs at the Tanglewood Music Center...
, Hallé
The Hallé
The Hallé is a symphony orchestra based in Manchester, England. It is the UK's oldest extant symphony orchestra , supports a choir, youth choir and a youth orchestra, and releases its recordings on its own record label, though it has occasionally released recordings on Angel Records and EMI...
, New York Philharmonic
New York Philharmonic
The New York Philharmonic is a symphony orchestra based in New York City in the United States. It is one of the American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five"...
and
Philadelphia
Philadelphia Orchestra
The Philadelphia Orchestra is a symphony orchestra based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the United States. One of the "Big Five" American orchestras, it was founded in 1900...
orchestras. She conducted several world premieres, including works by Copland and Stravinsky
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky ; 6 April 1971) was a Russian, later naturalized French, and then naturalized American composer, pianist, and conductor....
.
Ancestry and early years
Boulanger was born to a musical family. Her grandmother, Marie-Julie Boulanger, was a celebrated singer at the Opéra ComiqueOpera Comique
The Opera Comique was a 19th-century theatre constructed in Westminster, London, between Wych Street and Holywell Street with entrances on the East Strand. It opened in 1870 and was demolished in 1902, to make way for the construction of the Aldwych and Kingsway...
. Her grandfather, Frédéric Boulanger, won first prize for the cello in his fifth year (1797) at the recently founded Paris Conservatoire. Her father, Ernest Boulanger (1815–1900), entered the Conservatoire at the age of 16, studying piano, violin, and composition. In 1835, he won the Conservatoire's top prize, the Prix de Rome
Prix de Rome
The Prix de Rome was a scholarship for arts students, principally of painting, sculpture, and architecture. It was created, initially for painters and sculptors, in 1663 in France during the reign of Louis XIV. It was an annual bursary for promising artists having proved their talents by...
, for a one-act opera, Le Diable à l'École (The Devil at School). He later taught singing at the Conservatoire. In 1874, while he was performing in Russia, he met a young, married Russian schoolteacher, Raissa Suvalov (née Myschetsky). She moved to Paris to attend his singing class at the Conservatoire, and in 1877 they married; she was aged 20 and he 62. Their first child, Juliette Nadia Boulanger was born in Paris ten years later. By her sixth birthday, she was studying music under her mother's tutelage. A second child, Lili, was born in 1893. The aging father asked Nadia to promise to look after the newborn girl for the rest of her life.
Boulanger entered the Conservatoire at the age of 10, studying harmony with Paul Vidal
Paul Vidal
Paul Antoine Vidal was a French composer, conductor and music teacher.Paul Vidal was born in Toulouse. He studied at the conservatoires in Toulouse and in Paris, under Jules Massenet in the latter. He won the Prix de Rome in 1883, one year before Claude Debussy did...
and composition with Charles Marie Widor and Gabriel Fauré
Gabriel Fauré
Gabriel Urbain Fauré was a French composer, organist, pianist and teacher. He was one of the foremost French composers of his generation, and his musical style influenced many 20th century composers...
; she also studied the organ privately with Louis Vierne
Louis Vierne
Louis Victor Jules Vierne was a French organist and composer.-Life:Louis Vierne was born in Poitiers, Vienne, nearly blind due to congenital cataracts, but at an early age was discovered to have an unusual gift for music. Louis Victor Jules Vierne (8 October 1870 – 2 June 1937) was a French...
and Félix-Alexandre Guilmant. While still a student at the Conservatoire, she became the family's only breadwinner on the death of her father in 1900. She began taking engagements as a pianist, and teaching private students in the family's new flat in the rue Ballu, where she continued to live and teach until her death more than 75 years later. Among her early pupils was her younger sister, Lili, who studied counterpoint with her. In 1906, Boulanger became Fauré's assistant at the great organ of the Église de la Madeleine
Église de la Madeleine
L'église de la Madeleine is a Roman Catholic church occupying a commanding position in the 8th arrondissement of Paris. It was designed in its present form as a temple to the glory of Napoleon's army...
. She remained a lifelong devotee of his music and later introduced his Requiem
Requiem (Fauré)
Gabriel Fauré composed his Requiem in D minor, Op. 48 between 1887 and 1890. This choral–orchestral setting of the Roman Catholic Mass for the Dead is the best known of his large works. The most famous movement is the soprano aria Pie Jesu...
to several cities in Britain and the U.S.
Composer and conductor
Nadia Boulanger's compositions, published between 1901 and 1922, comprise 29 songs for solo singer and piano; nine larger-scale vocal works, some with orchestra; five works for instrumental solo (organ, cello, piano); two orchestral works, and an opera, La ville morte, and a song cycle, Les heures claires, both composed jointly with Raoul PugnoRaoul Pugno
Stéphane Raoul Pugno was a French composer, teacher, organist, and pianist known for his playing of Mozart's works.Raoul Pugno was born in Paris. He made his debut at the age of six, and with the help of Prince Poniatowski he was then able to study at the École Niedermeyer. He then went to the...
, for whom she composed a Fantaisie variée for piano and orchestra. The opera was due to be staged in 1914, but owing to Pugno's death and events leading up to World War I, it was never performed. A complete vocal score and the orchestration of Acts 1 and 3 survive. The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, it is the largest single reference work on Western music. The dictionary has gone through several editions since the 19th century...
says of Boulanger's music, "Her musical language is often highly chromatic (though always tonally based), and Debussy's influence is apparent … her self-critical attitude (the Fantaisie variée bears signs of extensive revision and is not performable in its present state) led her to concentrate on teaching." Most of her compositions date from before her younger sister's triumph at the Prix de Rome. Lili had never been healthy, and in 1918 she died. After Lili's death, Nadia abandoned composition, publishing only a few songs in 1922, and then nothing more. Fauré believed she was mistaken to stop composing, but she told told him, "If there is one thing of which I am certain, it is that my music is worthless."
Boulanger, who liked to be known as "Mademoiselle", made her conducting debut in 1912. She was the first woman to conduct several major symphony orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic
New York Philharmonic
The New York Philharmonic is a symphony orchestra based in New York City in the United States. It is one of the American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five"...
, the Boston Symphony Orchestra
Boston Symphony Orchestra
The Boston Symphony Orchestra is an orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts. It is one of the five American orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1881, the BSO plays most of its concerts at Boston's Symphony Hall and in the summer performs at the Tanglewood Music Center...
, the Philadelphia Orchestra
Philadelphia Orchestra
The Philadelphia Orchestra is a symphony orchestra based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the United States. One of the "Big Five" American orchestras, it was founded in 1900...
, and in England the Hallé Orchestra of Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
and the BBC Symphony Orchestra
BBC Symphony Orchestra
The BBC Symphony Orchestra is the principal broadcast orchestra of the British Broadcasting Corporation and one of the leading orchestras in Britain.-History:...
. On her first American tour she premiered Aaron Copland
Aaron Copland
Aaron Copland was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later in his career a conductor of his own and other American music. He was instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition, and is often referred to as "the Dean of American Composers"...
's "Symphony for Organ and Orchestra." 1937 she became the first woman to conduct a complete concert of the Royal Philharmonic Society
Royal Philharmonic Society
The Royal Philharmonic Society is a British music society, formed in 1813. It was originally formed in London to promote performances of instrumental music there. Many distinguished composers and performers have taken part in its concerts...
in London. In 1938 she directed the first performance of Stravinsky’s Concerto, Dumbarton Oaks in Washington DC.
As a performer she made few recordings. In 1937 HMV
HMV
His Master's Voice is a trademark in the music business, and for many years was the name of a large record label. The name was coined in 1899 as the title of a painting of the dog Nipper listening to a wind-up gramophone...
issued three sets of discs featuring her: the Piano Concerto in D by Jean Françaix
Jean Françaix
Jean René Désiré Françaix was a French neoclassical composer, pianist, and orchestrator, known for his prolific output and vibrant style.-Life:...
, which she conducted; the Brahms
Johannes Brahms
Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...
Liebeslieder Waltzes, in which she and Dinu Lipatti
Dinu Lipatti
Dinu Lipatti was a Romanian classical pianist and composer whose career was cut short by his death from Hodgkin's disease at age 33. He was elected posthumously to the Romanian Academy.-Biography:...
were the duo pianists with a vocal ensemble; and the first recordings of any music by Monteverdi: a selection of his madrigals, which she directed.
Teacher
The composer Ned RoremNed Rorem
Ned Rorem is a Pulitzer prize-winning American composer and diarist. He is best known and most praised for his song settings.-Life:...
described Boulanger as "the most influential teacher since Socrates
Socrates
Socrates was a classical Greek Athenian philosopher. Credited as one of the founders of Western philosophy, he is an enigmatic figure known chiefly through the accounts of later classical writers, especially the writings of his students Plato and Xenophon, and the plays of his contemporary ...
." She taught a very large number of students from Europe, Australia, and Canada, as well as over 600 American musicians. However, neither she nor Annette Dieudonné, her life-long friend and assistant, kept records of the students who studied with her. It is, moreover, virtually impossible to determine the nature and extent of many musicians' private study with Boulanger, ranging from prolonged and intensive tuition to brief, informal advice.
Boulanger's first teaching position was at the Conservatoire Femina-Musica in Paris in 1907. Later, she was one of the first staff members at Alfred Cortot's
Alfred Cortot
Alfred Denis Cortot was a Franco-Swiss pianist and conductor. He is one of the most renowned 20th-century classical musicians, especially valued for his poetic insight in Romantic period piano works, particularly those of Chopin and Schumann.-Early life and education:Born in Nyon, Vaud, in the...
École Normale de Musique de Paris
École Normale de Musique de Paris
The École Normale de Musique de Paris is a leading conservatoire located in Paris, France. The school was founded by Auguste Mangeot and pianist Alfred Cortot in 1919...
, beginning in 1920, where she taught a large variety of subjects. She was disappointed at not winning an appointment to the faculty of the Conservatoire, but in 1921 she was invited to join the first faculty of the Conservatoire Américain at Fontainebleau
Fontainebleau
Fontainebleau is a commune in the metropolitan area of Paris, France. It is located south-southeast of the centre of Paris. Fontainebleau is a sub-prefecture of the Seine-et-Marne department, and it is the seat of the arrondissement of Fontainebleau...
. This was a summer school, sponsored by American donors, at which Boulanger taught harmony, counterpoint, and composition under the directorship of Paul Dukas
Paul Dukas
Paul Abraham Dukas was a French composer, critic, scholar and teacher. A studious man, of retiring personality, he was intensely self-critical, and he abandoned and destroyed many of his compositions...
. Among her first pupils there was Aaron Copland
Aaron Copland
Aaron Copland was an American composer, composition teacher, writer, and later in his career a conductor of his own and other American music. He was instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition, and is often referred to as "the Dean of American Composers"...
, who was followed by many other young American composers. Some of her students, including Copland, Quincy Jones
Quincy Jones
Quincy Delightt Jones, Jr. is an American record producer and musician. A conductor, musical arranger, film composer, television producer, and trumpeter. His career spans five decades in the entertainment industry and a record 79 Grammy Award nominations, 27 Grammys, including a Grammy Legend...
, Denoe Leedy, Walter Piston
Walter Piston
Walter Hamor Piston Jr., , was an American composer of classical music, music theorist and professor of music at Harvard University whose students included Leroy Anderson, Leonard Bernstein, and Elliott Carter....
, George Peter Tingley, Roy Harris
Roy Harris
Roy Ellsworth Harris , was an American composer. He wrote much music on American subjects, becoming best known for his Symphony No...
, Virgil Thomson
Virgil Thomson
Virgil Thomson was an American composer and critic. He was instrumental in the development of the "American Sound" in classical music...
, Louise Talma, Michel Legrand
Michel Legrand
Michel Jean Legrand is a French musical composer, arranger, conductor, and pianist...
,Charles Fox, Joe Raposo
Joe Raposo
Joseph Guilherme Raposo, OIH was a Portuguese-American composer, songwriter, pianist, television writer and lyricist, best known for his work on the children's television series Sesame Street, for which he wrote the theme song, as well as classic songs such as "Bein' Green" and "C is for Cookie"...
, Astor Piazzolla, Philip Glass
Philip Glass
Philip Glass is an American composer. He is considered to be one of the most influential composers of the late 20th century and is widely acknowledged as a composer who has brought art music to the public .His music is often described as minimalist, along with...
, Russell Woollen
Russell Woollen
Washington, D.C. composer and keyboard artist Charles Russell Woollen was born in Hartford, Connecticut on January 7, 1923. Along with composer Robert Evett , he was a key figure in what might be considered a "Washington School" of composers that flourished in the 1960s and 1970s...
, Robert Shafer, and Elliott Carter
Elliott Carter
Elliott Cook Carter, Jr. is a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer born and living in New York City. He studied with Nadia Boulanger in Paris in the 1930s, and then returned to the United States. After a neoclassical phase, he went on to write atonal, rhythmically complex music...
established a new school of composition based on her teaching. Virgil Thompson once said that every town in the United States had a five-and-dime and a Boulanger pupil. Boulanger eventually became director of the Conservatoire Américain in 1948. She also taught at the Longy School of Music
Longy School of Music
The Longy School of Music of Bard College is a conservatory located near Harvard Square in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1915, it was one of the four independent degree-granting music schools in the Boston region along with the New England Conservatory, Berklee College of Music, and Boston...
and the Paris Conservatoire. She lived in the U.S. during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
and taught at Wellesley College, Radcliffe College
Radcliffe College
Radcliffe College was a women's liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and was the coordinate college for Harvard University. It was also one of the Seven Sisters colleges. Radcliffe College conferred joint Harvard-Radcliffe diplomas beginning in 1963 and a formal merger agreement with...
, and the Juilliard School
Juilliard School
The Juilliard School, located at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City, United States, is a performing arts conservatory which was established in 1905...
.
Boulanger's European students included Igor Markevitch
Igor Markevitch
Igor Markevitch was a Ukrainian, Italian, and French composer and conductor.- Origin :Igor Markevich was born in Kiev, to an old family of Ukrainian Cossack starshyna ennobled in the 18th century...
, Jean Françaix
Jean Françaix
Jean René Désiré Françaix was a French neoclassical composer, pianist, and orchestrator, known for his prolific output and vibrant style.-Life:...
, Francis Chagrin
Francis Chagrin
Francis Chagrin ,) was a composer of film scores and popular orchestral music, as well as a conductor.- Career :...
, Lennox Berkeley
Lennox Berkeley
Sir Lennox Randal Francis Berkeley was an English composer.- Biography :He was born in Oxford, England, and educated at the Dragon School, Gresham's School and Merton College, Oxford...
, and Donald Covert. In England she taught at the Yehudi Menuhin School
Yehudi Menuhin School
The Yehudi Menuhin School is a specialist music school in Surrey, England. It was founded in 1963 by the violinist Yehudi Menuhin.The School also gives pupils the best musical education any specialist schools can with a number of internationally main teachers, Simon Fischer , Natalya Boyarskaya ,...
, and gave lectures on a wide range of music topics at the Royal College of Music
Royal College of Music
The Royal College of Music is a conservatoire founded by Royal Charter in 1882, located in South Kensington, London, England.-Background:The first director was Sir George Grove and he was followed by Sir Hubert Parry...
and the Royal Academy of Music
Royal Academy of Music
The Royal Academy of Music in London, England, is a conservatoire, Britain's oldest degree-granting music school and a constituent college of the University of London since 1999. The Academy was founded by Lord Burghersh in 1822 with the help and ideas of the French harpist and composer Nicolas...
which were broadcast nationally by the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
. She also served on the juries of international piano competitions including, in 1966, the International Tchaikovsky Competition
International Tchaikovsky Competition
The International Tchaikovsky Competition is a classical music competition held every four years in Moscow, Russia for pianists, violinists, and cellists between 16 and 30 years of age, and singers between 19 and 32 years of age...
in Moscow, chaired by Emil Gilels
Emil Gilels
Emil Grigoryevich Gilels was a Soviet pianist, widely considered one of the greatest pianists of the 20th century.His last name is sometimes transliterated Hilels.-Biography:...
.
Boulanger's teaching methods included traditional harmony, score reading at the piano, species counterpoint, analysis, and sight singing (using fixed-Do solfège
Solfege
In music, solfège is a pedagogical solmization technique for the teaching of sight-singing in which each note of the score is sung to a special syllable, called a solfège syllable...
). She disapproved of innovation for innovation's sake: "When you are writing music of your own, never strain to avoid the obvious." "You need an established language and then, within that established language, the liberty to be yourself. It's always necessary to be yourself – that is a mark of genius in itself."
Even though her eyesight and hearing began to fade towards the end of her life, Boulanger worked almost until her death in 1979.
Recordings
- Women of Note. Women’s Philharmonic, Gillian Benet; Women’s Philharmonic; Louisville Orchestra; English Chamber Orchestra, Nina Flyer; New Zealand Chamber Orchestra, Alexa Still, along with Sarah Ravitch. Koch International Classics B000001SKH, 1997.
- Chamber Music by French Female Composers. Martin Ostertag, Dagmar Becker, Werner Genuit. Classic Talent B000002K49, 2000.