Notes on Lili Boulanger and His Works | Jean-Michel Serres, Composer-pianist (Apfel Café Music): Website

Overview

🎼 Lili Boulanger (1893-1918)

Full name: Marie-Juliette Olga Boulanger
Nationality: French
Period: Modern / Late Romantic – early 20th century

🌟 A precocious and exceptional talent

Lili Boulanger came from a family of musicians: her father, Ernest Boulanger, was a composer, and her older sister, Nadia Boulanger, was to become one of the most influential pedagogues of the 20th century.

Gifted with prodigious talent, Lili showed a remarkable aptitude for music and singing from an early age.

🏆 First woman to win the Prix de Rome (1913)

At just 19, she became the first woman to win the prestigious Prix de Rome with her cantata Faust et Hélène. This historic victory broke a major barrier in the very male-dominated world of composition.

🎶 Musical style

Lili Boulanger’s music is characterised by great expressivity, rich harmonic colours, an impressionist influence (close to Debussy), and a striking emotional depth.

Her works, often marked by melancholy, also reflect the fragility of her health.

His best-known works include

Faust and Hélène (1913)

Pie Jesu (1918)

Clairières dans le ciel (cycle of melodies on poems by Francis Jammes)

D’un matin de printemps (orchestra or piano and violin)

Psalm 130 – From the depths of the abyss

💔 A tragically short life

Lili had suffered from poor health since childhood (probably Crohn’s disease, undiagnosed at the time).

She died at the age of 24, in 1918, leaving behind a body of work of impressive maturity.

👩‍🏫 Legacy

Although her career was brief, Lili Boulanger is recognised today as one of the great figures of French music.

Throughout her life, her sister Nadia worked to promote her work and perpetuate her memory.

History

Lili Boulanger was born in Paris in 1893, into a family where music flowed like a peaceful but constant river. Her father, Ernest, was a composer and former winner of the Prix de Rome. His mother, of Russian origin, was also a musician. As for her older sister, Nadia, she was already immersed in a world of notes, scales and fugues. Lili grew up in this hushed atmosphere, bathed in sound, in a home where music was not an art reserved for the elite, but an everyday language.

Very early on, she revealed a dazzling gift. She could hear, feel and understand music like a mother tongue. But Lili’s health was fragile. From childhood, she was often ill and weak, suffering from a condition that is now thought to be a severe form of Crohn’s disease. This gave her a precocious maturity and a particular acuity about the things of life – and no doubt also about the shadow of death.

She often accompanied her sister Nadia to the Paris Conservatoire, absorbing knowledge like a sponge. But Lili didn’t just follow: she created. She composed. And what she wrote was astonishing: there was a harmonic richness, an emotional density, a rare sensitivity. In 1913, at the age of 19, she made history: she became the first woman to win the Prix de Rome, with a cantata entitled Faust et Hélène. This was not just a personal triumph. It was a victory for all women artists, in a world that was still very closed and dominated by men.

But fate gave her no respite. Her health declined and war broke out. Despite everything, she continued to compose, often bedridden, dictating her works to assistants. She created to the very end. She drew on poetry, the Bible, nature, pain and hope. In her works you can hear a fragile light, a fervour, a call from an immense inner world.

She died in March 1918, aged just 24. She left behind a short body of work, but of such intensity that she is sometimes compared to Schubert – who also died too young. Her sister Nadia, distraught but determined, devoted much of her life to keeping Lili’s music alive. Thanks to her, and to the strength of her own compositions, Lili Boulanger never disappeared.

Today, to listen to Lili is to enter a world of fine emotion, of tender or violent harmonic colours, of silences full of meaning. It is to listen to the voice of a young, genial woman, marked by pain, but who never stopped believing in beauty.

Chronology

1893 – Born into music

Marie-Juliette Olga Boulanger, soon nicknamed Lili, was born in Paris on 21 August. She arrived in a home where music was king. Her father, Ernest Boulanger, had won the Prix de Rome in 1835, and her mother, Raïssa Myshetskaya, was a singer trained at the St Petersburg Conservatoire. Lili was immersed in this artistic world from the very beginning.

1895-1900 – A fragile, alert childhood

From an early age, Lili showed a precocious gift. She had an absolute ear for music, and read music before she read words. But she was also in delicate health. A bout of pneumonia at the age of two left lasting damage. Doctors judged her to be ‘fragile’. She spent her childhood alternating between the pleasures of music and bed rest.

1900-1908 – An exceptional pupil in Nadia’s shadow

Her sister Nadia, six years her senior, entered the Conservatoire. Lili followed her like a shadow, attending her classes and absorbing everything. At an age when other children are still clumsily playing scales, Lili understands counterpoints, modulations and complex forms. She began to compose in secret, timidly.

1909 – Death of the father

Ernest Boulanger died. Lili was only 6 years old. This void strengthened the bond between the two sisters. Nadia became Lili’s guide, protector and confidante. And, later, her main ally in the musical world.

1912 – A failed attempt at the Prix de Rome

Lili attempted the Prix de Rome competition, following in her father’s footsteps. She impressed everyone… but a relapse of her illness forced her to give up in the middle of the competition. She was rushed to hospital.

1913 – The great turning point

A year later, she returned, determined. She presented Faust et Hélène, a cantata for choir and orchestra to a libretto by Eugène Adenis. The jury was dazzled: Lili Boulanger became the first woman to win the Prix de Rome.

It was a historic moment, at a time when women were not expected to excel in so-called ‘learned’ composition. Her victory aroused both admiration and debate.

1914 – War and exile in Rome

She left for the Villa Médicis in Rome, as required by the prize. But the First World War broke out. Lili soon returned to France. In spite of everything, she composed melodies, piano pieces and profound vocal works such as Clairières dans le ciel and Trois morceaux pour piano.

1915-1917 – A fight against time

The illness progressed. Lili became weaker and weaker, often confined to bed. But she continued to compose. In particular, she worked on Psalm 130 – From the depths of the abyss, a monumental and deeply moving work.

She also began a Requiem, but did not have the strength to complete it.

1918 – The end of a song, the birth of a myth

On 15 March 1918, Lili died in Paris, in the arms of her sister. She was 24 years old. The war was not yet over. Her body was buried in the Montmartre cemetery. Her distraught sister Nadia vowed to keep her music alive – and she succeeded.

After her death – A work that continues to shine

Nadia Boulanger became the ambassador of Lili’s genius. She played, conducted and published her works. Thanks to her, Lili was not forgotten. What’s more, as the decades went by, we discovered that she was not only a tragic figure, but also a major composer whose unique voice continues to touch our hearts.

Characteristics of the music

Lili Boulanger’s music is like a rare flower: both delicate and deeply rooted in a land of powerful emotions. She lived only 24 years, but what she left behind is exceptionally rich and mature. It echoes her physical fragility, but also her remarkable inner intensity.

This is how we might describe the musical characteristics of Lili Boulanger – not as a dry analysis, but as a soundscape to be explored.

🎨 A rich palette of harmonic colours

Lili Boulanger did not follow the classical rules like a disciplined pupil: she bent them to her expressive needs. Her music is marked by bold harmonies, unexpected modulations, exploded or suspended chords and subtle chromaticism. She was influenced by Debussy, but without imitating him: for her, harmony becomes a way of painting the soul.

In Clairières dans le ciel, for example, each melody seems to float between heaven and earth, always tinged with doubt, a poetic haze.

🌊 Time and silence

She plays with time as if it were living matter. Some passages are meditatively slow, almost suspended. She uses silence as a breath of air, an emotional climax. This is a far cry from rigid structures: everything breathes, everything seems to express itself with extreme humanity.

🎶 The voice at the centre: lyricism and interiority

The sung voice is at the heart of her music. She composes a lot for soprano, for choir, for voice and orchestra. But it is never decorative. For her, the voice becomes the instrument of the soul, of prayer, of appeal. Her vocal lines are supple, expressive, natural but never simple.

Her Pie Jesu, written shortly before her death, is overwhelmingly clear: a naked, intimate prayer, without grandiloquence – almost whispered to God.

⚰️ An awareness of death, but without despair

The omnipresence of illness in his life is reflected in his music. But not as a complaint: rather as a depth, an acute awareness of the passage of time. She writes about waiting, absence and hope. We sense a serene gravity, as if beauty were for her a remedy for pain.

In Psalm 130 – From the depths of the abyss, this tension between despair and faith reaches an almost mystical power.

🌿 An inner nature

Even when she evokes nature, as in D’un matin de printemps, it is not the descriptive nature of Vivaldi. It’s nature seen from within, symbolic, impressionistic – not a real spring, but a spring felt. The sounds rustle and quiver, without ever becoming predictable.

👂 A personal language

Lili Boulanger found her own voice very early on. Of course she knew Bach, she loved Fauré, she admired Debussy. But she copied no one. Her style was not academic. It’s music that comes from herself, from what she feels, from what she sees in poetic texts, in the psalms, in silence.

In a nutshell

Her music is a young heart speaking with the wisdom of an old soul. It’s tenderness mixed with drama, light mixed with shadow. You can’t listen to Lili Boulanger in a vacuum: she touches, she haunts, she overwhelms.

Style(s), movement(s) and period of music

It touches on what makes Lili Boulanger so unique and fascinating: her music eludes rigid labels. She’s at the crossroads of several movements, all the while asserting a personal and singular voice.

So let’s try to situate her music on this stylistic map:

Traditional or progressive?

Lili Boulanger’s music is progressive in its language, but rooted in a certain tradition.

Traditional: She has a perfect mastery of classical forms, counterpoint, choral writing inherited from Bach or Fauré. It respects sacred texts and ancient vocal forms.

Progressive: It goes beyond this tradition with harmonic freedom, a highly personal language and a modern expressiveness that heralds certain twentieth-century developments.

It does not try to revolutionise, but rather broadens the language with finesse and daring. In this sense, she is resolutely of her time, even a little ahead of it.

🎻 Romantic or post-romantic?

Lili Boulanger is more post-romantic, but with nuances:

She inherits Romanticism through its emotional intensity, subjectivity and depth of feeling.

But she went beyond traditional Romanticism, with a more stripped-down, more interior style, often without pathos.

She shares with Mahler and even Berg the ability to conjure up the sublime from the fragile, the spiritual and the intimate.

🌫️ Impressionist?

Yes, in part. His music is full of :

Floating harmonies, rare modes, sounds that suggest rather than affirm, in the manner of Debussy.

Ambient soundscapes and plays of light, as in D’un matin de printemps, evoke a quivering, awakening mood.

But unlike Debussy, she does not paint exterior landscapes: her impressionism is psychological, spiritual, introspective.

Neoclassical?

Not really. Neoclassicism (as with Stravinsky or Poulenc) is often based on a form of irony, formal clarity, a return to classical sobriety.
Lili Boulanger, on the other hand, remained highly expressive and lyrical, often charged with symbolism or spirituality. She did not adopt ‘old-fashioned’ forms with an aesthetic distance. She is too sincere, too emotionally invested for that.

✨ To sum up?

Lili Boulanger’s music is :

Post-romantic in its expressiveness and depth,

Impressionistic in its harmonies and atmospheres,

Progressive in its formal freedom and personal language,

Non-neoclassical and not strictly traditional,

And above all… unclassifiable: she creates her own voice, between heaven and earth, between pain and light.

Relationships

Although short-lived, Lili Boulanger’s artistic life was interwoven with rich and influential relationships, both with musicians and non-musical figures. Some of these relationships were seminal, others more discreet but significant. Here is an account of these links, like a constellation around her.

Nadia Boulanger – sister, mentor, soulmate

The deepest, most intimate link was, of course, with Nadia, her elder sister. Nadia was not just a brilliant teacher and musician; she was Lili’s emotional and artistic pillar.

From childhood, it was Nadia who introduced Lili to harmony, analysis and the great masters. Then, when Lili won the Prix de Rome, it was Nadia again who encouraged and supported her, and helped her to work.

After Lili’s death, Nadia became her living memory, defending her music, directing it, publishing it and having it performed in the most prestigious circles. Thanks to Nadia, Lili goes down in history.

Gabriel Fauré – the master’s admiration

Fauré, who had been Nadia’s teacher and a pillar of the Paris Conservatoire, knew Lili. He was touched by her exceptional talent and sensitivity, and followed her progress closely.

He was quoted as saying that Lili Boulanger was ‘the most gifted musician of her generation’. Lili’s music is subtly influenced by Fauré’s taste for song, refined harmonies and this form of emotional modesty.

Claude Debussy – admiration from a distance

There is no trace of a highly developed direct relationship between Debussy and Lili, but her music is deeply influenced by Debussy’s harmonic climate. Nadia Boulanger, for her part, knew Debussy personally.

Lili probably admired Debussy without imitating him. She moves in a similar direction, but with a more spiritual gravity. You could say that Debussy painted the mists of the world, and Lili the mists of the soul.

🧑‍🎨 Francis Jammes – the poet confidant

The link with Francis Jammes, the French poet of the early twentieth century, is fundamental. Lili chose his poems to compose her Clairières dans le ciel cycle, one of the high points of her vocal work.

Jammes was not a musician, but his simple, mystical, melancholy verses resonated deeply with Lili’s sensibility. It is said that their exchange was epistolary, respectful and poetic. She found in his texts a mirror to her own inner world.

🩺 Doctors and carers – silent but present figures

We don’t name them, but they play a central role in her life. Lili, who was ill for most of her life, was in constant dialogue with her pain. Her stays in hospital, her treatments and her physical weakness structured her creative rhythm. She dictated her works in bed, sometimes with the help of an assistant copyist.

🎤 Performers during her lifetime – rare but precious

There were a few performers who played her music during her lifetime, notably at concerts associated with the Prix de Rome. But her posthumous recognition is greater than that which she enjoyed during her lifetime.

The great interpreters of her work came after her, guided by Nadia: singers like Denise Duval, conductors like Igor Markevitch, and more recently conductors like Susanna Mälkki and Emmanuelle Haïm have all contributed to the rediscovery of her music.

🏛️ Institutions: the Paris Conservatoire and Villa Medici

The Conservatoire was the crucible of her training, although she never studied there officially for as long as Nadia did. She attended classes there, and was well known and respected.

The Villa Medici in Rome, a prize awarded with victory in the Prix de Rome, was a symbolic step. She did not stay there long because of the war, but it marked Lili’s official entry into the circle of composers recognised by the French state.

🎶 All in all…

Lili Boulanger was surrounded by few people, but by deep relationships:

A sister like a double,

Caring teachers,

A poet who held up a mirror to her,

And, above all, a medical and spiritual silence that accompanied her everywhere.

It is these human links, more than the official networks, that have nourished her music.

The relationship between Nadia Boulanger

The relationship between Lili Boulanger and Nadia Boulanger is one of the most beautiful, profound and poignant in the history of music. It is a story of sororal love, art, devotion, light and grief – all at once.

It is the story of two sisters, two souls united, but with radically opposed destinies: one, flamboyant and brief like a shooting star; the other, long and patient, like a flame that keeps watch.

🌱 Lili in Nadia’s luminous shadow

When Lili was born in 1893, Nadia was already six years old. Right from the start, a bond develops between them: Nadia becomes the protective big sister, the first teacher, the confidante.

Lili was a silent, fragile, sickly child. She observes. Nadia, on the other hand, is a fervent music student. She wants to be a composer, and Lili listens to her, follows her, learns. Very early on, Lili is more gifted than Nadia. Nadia knew it. And she accepts it with a rare generosity.

It’s not a rivalry: it’s a communion. Nadia would later say:

‘What I would have liked to be, she was naturally.’

🎼 Complicit artists

When Lili began to compose seriously, it was Nadia who guided her technically, but without ever locking her in. Nadia corrects, suggests, accompanies – never directing or imposing.

When Lili worked on her cantata Faust et Hélène for the Prix de Rome in 1913, Nadia helped her finalise the orchestration, encouraged her, looked after her health and supported her in her doubts.

Lili, for her part, admired Nadia deeply. She wrote her letters full of tenderness and gratitude, but also humour and lucidity. It’s an exchange between equals, despite their age difference.

🌫️ Lili’s death, Nadia’s metamorphosis

When Lili died in 1918, aged 24, it was an earthquake in Nadia’s life. She was no longer the same. She stopped composing almost completely. She would later say:

‘When Lili died, I heard no more music inside me’.

From then on, Nadia’s career changed: she became the most influential teacher of the twentieth century, training generations of composers (Copland, Glass, Piazzolla, Gardiner, etc.). But in the end, she never taught anything other than to keep alive what Lili had left her.

She spends her life defending her sister’s memory, publishing her works, getting them played and recorded, getting them into conservatoires, concerts and hearts.

🕯️ A love that transcends death

Until the end of her very long life (she died in 1979 at the age of 92), Nadia always spoke of Lili as a living presence. She keeps vigil over her grave, speaks of her as if she were a familiar angel, and continues to pass on her musical heritage like a sacred fire.

She never married, never had children: Lili remains her only vital link, her great love – musical, spiritual, sororal.

✨ To sum up

The relationship between Lili and Nadia Boulanger is much more than a family relationship.
It is:

An absolute friendship,

An artistic fusion,

An act of transmission,

A sacred pain,

And perhaps one of the finest examples of the sublimation of loss through art.

Similar composers

Here is a selection of composers similar to Lili Boulanger, not because they resemble her perfectly – for she is unique – but because they share a similar sensibility, language, era or spirit.

I present them to you as echoes, neighbouring souls in the musical landscape:

🎶 1. Claude Debussy (1862-1918)

Though not identical, Debussy is a stylistic big brother.

They share a floating harmonic language, free forms and an impressionist sensibility, but Lili is more mystical, more interior.

Compare D’un matin de printemps (Lili) to Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune (Debussy): the same mist, the same moving light.

🎶 2. Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924)

Fauré was an important influence and a sincere admirer of Lili.

What they have in common is harmonic subtlety, a taste for vocal melody, and a restrained elegance, sometimes almost funereal but always delicate.

In Lili we hear a continuation of Fauré’s refinement, pushed towards greater spiritual tension.

🎶 3. Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)

Mahler? Yes, surprisingly so.

Not for the style, but for the mixture of pain, childhood, the sacred, nature and transcendence.

Like Lili, Mahler wrote with death in his sights, but without despair. Their music is shot through with a metaphysical breath.

🎶 4. Henri Dutilleux (1916-2013)

Dutilleux is a later composer, but their harmonic demands, their refinement of sound and their sense of mystery bring them closer together.

We also sense in him this link between silence, space and music.

🎶 5. Mel Bonis (1858-1937)

Forgotten French composer, contemporary of Lili.

Less daring harmonically, but a feminine, intimate, poetic sensibility, very present.

Her pieces for piano or choir have a tenderness close to that of Lili.

🎶 6. Rebecca Clarke (1886-1979)

British composer and violist, contemporary of Lili.

Her Sonata for viola is often compared to Lili’s intense expressiveness.

Music that exudes inner drama, harmonic sensuality, emotional depth.

🎶 7. Alma Mahler (1879-1964)

Less prolific, but in the same atmosphere.

Her music is lyrical, passionate, sometimes sombre, with post-romantic colours close to those of Lili.

A figure also marked by the tensions between life, art and illness.

🎶 8. Benjamin Britten (1913-1976)

Much later in his career, but sharing a keen sense of sacred text, vocal introspection and musical mystery.

His War Requiem could dialogue with Lili’s Pie Jesu: same sublime gravity.

✨ To sum up

If you’re looking for composers like Lili Boulanger, look to :

Debussy for colour,

Fauré for elegance,

Mahler for existential depth,

Rebecca Clarke and Mel Bonis for their female voices,

And Nadia, of course, like an inverted mirror.

Famous works for solo piano

Lili Boulanger composed few works for solo piano, but those she did leave us are deeply expressive, refined and striking. They are a perfect reflection of her musical language: poetic, serious, mysterious, sometimes luminous, always personal.

Here are Lili Boulanger’s best-known works for solo piano:

🎹 1. Trois Morceaux pour piano (1914)

Her most famous collection for solo piano. Three miniatures rich in atmosphere and colour:

I. D’un vieux jardin
Soft, melancholy atmosphere, full of hazy memories.
→ Impressionistic, intimate, almost whispered.

II. Of a light garden
Brighter, more mobile, with a spring-like charm.
→ Reminiscent of Debussy, but with a personal fragility.

III. Cortège
A more lively, dancing piece, almost childlike at times.
→ Perfect contrast with the first two, joyfully stylised.

💡 This triptych is often compared to Debussy’s Images or Estampes, but with a delicate, highly concentrated female voice.

🎹 2. Prelude in D-flat major (1911 or 1912)

An early piece, but already very mature.

Rich harmonies, restrained lyricism, flowing beauty.
→ A kind of flowing meditation, somewhere between Fauré and Ravel.

🎹 3. Vers la vie nouvelle (1917) (fragment)

Unfinished piece, dictated when she was very weak.

It carried within it an impulse towards the light, like a profession of hope despite the illness.
→ A poignant, sober, intense testimony.

🎹 And some notable transcriptions

D’un matin de printemps, originally for trio or orchestra, also exists in a solo piano version.
→ One of the most played today, lively, bright, very colourful.

Pianists sometimes adapt certain choral or vocal pages (such as Pie Jesu) for solo piano, to extend its repertoire.

Famous works

Lili Boulanger’s work, apart from that for solo piano, is rich, profound and varied, though concentrated in a very short space of time. She excelled particularly in vocal music, choral music, chamber music and orchestral pieces. Here are the most famous and frequently performed works:

🎻🎺 Orchestral and chamber works

🟢 D’un matin de printemps (1917-1918)

For orchestra, piano trio or violin and piano.

One of his best-known pieces, lively, light, colourful.
→ Music of light and movement, full of freshness.

🟣 D’un soir triste (1918)

For orchestra or piano trio.

Tragic complement to D’un matin de printemps.
→ Dark, serious, heartbreaking atmosphere. Last work before his death.

🔵 Nocturne for violin and piano (1911)

Tender, suspended, mysterious.
→ Often compared to Fauré or Ravel, but with a unique interiority.

🎶 Vocal works (melodies and cycles)

🌸 Clairières dans le ciel (1914)

Cycle of 13 melodies for voice and piano (or orchestra).

On poems by Francis Jammes.
→ Masterly, highly personal work. Lost love, nature, innocence, mysticism.

🌅 Reflets (1911)

Two melodies: Attente and Reflets (on poems by Maeterlinck).
→ Already impressionistic, mysterious, almost symbolist.

🕊️ Les sirènes (1911)

For women’s choir and piano.
→ Waves, sensuality, myth – very Debussian.

🎼 Sacred and choral works

⚰️ Pie Jesu (1918)

For solo voice, organ, harp and string orchestra.

Composed almost entirely in bed, dictated to his sister.
→ Intense, luminous, painfully beautiful. A farewell prayer.

✝️ Psalm 130 – From the depths of the abyss (1917)

For voice, choir, orchestra, organ.

Monumental, dramatic, almost a liturgical fresco.
→ Inspired by the war and his own suffering.

✨ Hymn to the Sun (1912)

For women’s choir and piano (or orchestra).
→ Vibrant celebration, rich in bursts of light and harmony.

🎧 To sum up:

The most famous outside solo piano are:

D’un matin de printemps

D’un soir triste

Clairières dans le ciel

Pie Jesu

Psalm 130 – From the depths of the abyss

These are works of great emotional maturity, often traversed by light and shadow, with refined, sincere and powerful writing.

Activities outside composition

Outside of composition, Lili Boulanger led a brief but intense life, marked by art, literature, spirituality and human commitment. Despite her frail health, she was never content to compose alone in her room: she was active, cultured, curious, committed – a true spirit on the alert.

Here are Lili Boulanger’s main activities beyond musical composition:

📚 1. Study and reading

Lili was a passionate reader. She read poetry, philosophy, spiritual texts and modern literature.

She had a predilection for Francis Jammes, Maeterlinck, and other symbolist or mystical poets.

She drew inspiration for her vocal works from literature, but also essential inner nourishment.

Her literary culture shines through in her choice of highly refined texts and the subtle way she sets them to music.

🎨 2. Drawing and the visual arts

Before devoting herself fully to music, Lili was interested in drawing, painting and decorating.

She possessed a real graphic talent and pictorial sensibility, which some compare to the finesse of her orchestration.

She was interested in colours, textures and shapes, and this fed into her highly visual approach to music.

🏥 3. Humanitarian commitment during the First World War

During the war, although extremely ill, Lili was actively involved in supporting the soldiers and families affected:

She organised and supported relief work, including providing musical and illustrated postcards for the wounded and orphans.

She worked with her sister Nadia to send parcels, write letters and raise funds.

It was in this context that she wrote some very poignant sacred works, such as Pie Jesu and Psalm 130.

Despite her constant physical pain, she wanted to ‘do something useful’.

📝 4. Correspondence and diary

Lili left behind a wealth of beautiful correspondence, particularly with Nadia, but also with friends, artists and intellectuals.

Her letters bear witness to a mind that is lucid, funny, profound, sometimes highly critical, often poetic.

She wrote about music, faith, politics and her state of health, but always with grace.

Her writing is as fine as her music: elegant, serious, never plaintive.

✝️ 5. An intense spiritual life

Lili’s inner faith was not dogmatic but profound.

She was interested in biblical texts, prayer and the sacred in art.

This mystical dimension runs through all her works, even her instrumental ones.

She never separated art and soul.

🎧 To sum up:

Apart from composing, Lili Boulanger was :

A reader and poetess in the shadows,

A draughtswoman and lover of the visual arts,

A woman committed during the war,

A sensitive and brilliant letter writer,

A deeply spiritual soul,

And, in spite of it all, a strong-willed, clear-sighted and generous patient.

Episodes and anecdotes

Lili Boulanger’s life is short but full of touching, powerful, sometimes funny, often deeply moving episodes. Behind her image as a serious, witty young composer lies a lively, ironic personality, fiercely determined, with bursts of humour, emotion and courage.

Here are a few anecdotes and episodes from her life:

🎵 1. The child prodigy who sang the fugue at the age of two

Even before she could read, Lili heard her sister Nadia doing harmony exercises and… she sang them by heart, particularly Bach fugues.

She was only 2 and already suffering from respiratory problems.

Her mother would say that she ‘breathed music’.

🎶 This precociousness went hand in hand with great emotional maturity. At the age of 5, she lost her father – and this wound would never leave her.

🥇 2. First woman to win the Prix de Rome (1913)

On 16 July 1913, Lili, then aged 19 and very ill, won the Grand Prix de Rome outright, with her cantata Faust et Hélène.

She had had to abandon the competition the previous year in the middle of the competition because of an acute attack of intestinal tuberculosis.

In 1913, carried on a stretcher, she entered the examination room, dictated the score to her assistant, and then won against her male competitors.

⚡ The jury was stunned. A woman! So young! And such a strong, dramatic, structured work!
It was a scandal for some… and a revolution.

💌 3. Her mischievous correspondence with Nadia

Even though Lili’s health was fragile, she had humour, wit and tenderness. In her letters to Nadia, there are some real nuggets:

‘I write to you lying down, with my head in the cushions, like a true inspired sloth’.

Or again, talking about her pains:

‘This morning I have the grace and mobility of a vine stake. But I still managed to finish my Psalm!

She also called Nadia by tender little names, such as ‘Ma Nadie chérie’.

🧳 4. Lili at Villa Medici: between creation and suffering

After winning the Prix de Rome, she went to stay at the Villa Médicis in Rome.

But her state of health meant that she could do almost nothing: she had to work lying down, often bedridden, and could not cope well with the climate.

Nevertheless, she persevered, wrote music, invited Nadia to come and developed a passion for Italy and its colours.

She even took an interest in architecture, gardens and the ancient arts.

Her strength of will was extraordinary. She composed almost like you breathe – or rather, like you try to keep on breathing.

🎹 5. Dictating Pie Jesu on her deathbed

Shortly before her death in 1918, Lili no longer had the strength to write. Bedridden, almost blind and in constant pain, she dictated note for note to Nadia the passages of what was to become her last work: Pie Jesu.

She needed a sacred breath, an ultimate peace.

Nadia would later say:

‘It was as if she was already writing from the other side.’

🌺 6. A big heart, even in war

During the First World War, she mobilised in her own way.

She sent parcels to soldiers and took part in relief work.

She even created illustrated and musical postcards to brighten up hospitals.

She said to her sister:

‘I’m ill, but they’re wounded. We don’t have the right to do nothing.

🕊️ 7. Lili wanted to live, but not by halves

In a letter shortly before her death, she wrote:

‘I’m not afraid of dying. It’s that I haven’t lived enough.