Customer Reviews

BOULANGER, Lili and Nadia: In Memoriam Lili Boulanger

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Lili Boulanger was an artist way ahead of her time, especially considering that she died at just 24. A true genius, this album is an excellent introduction to her work and special artistry.

This is an excellent recording and fine tribute from the pianist to his teacher Nadia Boulanger.

A few words to one of the reviewers for his questionable comments about the works of the two women composers on this album. First of all, Nadia Boulanger herself admitted that she was not a composer, but a teacher. Lili Boulanger was not a teacher but in the span of her short life of 24 years she left a small body of work of remarkable quality and inspiration very much earmarked with genius. We can only speculate on what she might have further achieved had she lived. Igor Stravinsky was 28 when he composed The Firebird and 31 when the Rite of Spring was first performed. Arnold Schoenberg was 38 when he wrote Pierrot. To compare Boulanger who was born ten years after Stravinsky who himself outlived her by over fifty years of creative life or Arnold Schoenberg who was almost twenty years her senior is a bit unfair. Furthermore composers Aaron Copland, Roy Harris and Virgil Thomson also lived into creative old age. Personal responses or opinions about a composer or artist are the right of all, but a review should be put into perspective.

there's one thing concerning criticism that one shouldn't do: if you can't genuinely "feel" the work of art, just don't venture to review it!
Comparing Copland, Thomson, Harris with the Boulangers doesn't mean anything. They're definitely different types of composers who write different music which's so alien to each other that I personally reckon they won't and shouldn't be mentioned together! it's not that one is good, the other is bad. they're all excellent music that stand on their own! Expect Lili Boulanger to compose Copland's music is like asking Bach to compose "The Rite of Spring"! They're just that different.

This title offers small-scale pieces of both Lili and Nadia Boulanger, plus a piece by the main performer-pianist, Emile Naoumoff. The music itself is not too much of a stretch, considering that "Le sacre du printemps" and "Pierrot Lunaire" came from the same decade as the small catalog of Lili and Nadia Boulanger. This recording is has some importance as one of the few recordings of the Boulanger ouevre. However, its content offers none of the musical insights that their famed pupils (Copland, Thomson, Harris, Blitzstein) provided the world.