About CLAIRIÈRES

The selections on this album are songs that both Nadia and Lili Boulanger were composing during these years leading up to and immediately after their respective successes at the Prix de Rome. While both sisters’ compositional careers were cut short for different reasons, these songs give a glimpse into both composers’ trajectories and aesthetics. Nadia and Lili also created orchestral versions of many of these songs, showing that these women were honing their compositional techniques for larger forces: a clear sign they were determined to compose for all genres, just like their male counterparts. These songs clearly demonstrate both the development and mastery of their techniques during these early years, as they endeavored to carry on the traditions of French classical music that had been redefined in the early years of the belle époque.

In his book, Mademoiselle: Conversations with Nadia Boulanger, Bruno Monsaingeon quotes Nadia describing her younger sister as ‘the first important woman composer,’ and musing ‘I wonder why there is a certain reluctance to acknowledge her place in history.’ In much of the press surrounding both women’s successes with the Prix de Rome, much of the focus was on their gender, as opposed to the music that they wrote. There was focus on their attractive appearance, and in the case of Lili, wonderment at how such a seemingly frail young woman could achieve such an accomplishment. As in all movements, the tokenism of identity can obliterate the actual work of the artist, and it seems that such was the case for both Nadia and Lili. In blazing trails for women, the excellence of their work was lost in the smoke left in their wake. The compositional mastery and expressive beauty of their music are lost to anecdote: rather than have her music enter the canon of the standard repertoire (where it belongs), Lili is remembered as the first woman who did a thing. Nadia, not having had the support that her sister had in the years following her second-place finish, eventually suffered a crisis of faith and gave up composing completely, only to be remembered via the famous male composers who were her pupils.

This recording is meant to be a testament to the beautiful work of these two extraordinary women who changed the course of music history. Of course, that they broke ground for women in a time of social upheaval is inextricable from both their story and their music. But I hope this recording will help shift the focus away from their gender and anecdotal significance, and instead towards the deeply-layered beauty and artistic excellence of their music.