NEW ALBUM: Lili Boulanger Trois Morceaux pour Piano (Live in Concert)

I’m excited to announce the release of my third album of Lili Boulanger’s Trois Morceaux pour Piano. Take a moment to listen to it on these platforms.

Lili Boulanger was a trailblazer. She was the first woman composer to win (at the age of 18) the Rome Prize, an important competition for French composers who received an invitation, and funding to live and compose in Rome. Following the success at the Prix de Rome, Lili stayed at the Villa Medici, where she composed Trois Morceaux pour Piano. These short pieces are charming and meticulously crafted musical moments. Her serious composition background is evident in her masterful use of harmony and texture.

The first piece “D’un jardin clair” (“Of a Bright Garden”) is based on a single melodic line whose fragments appear throughout the piece. The parallel fourths and fifths create the unmistakably French sound world, with the serene accompaniment of the melody evocative of Satie, an episode of calm and contemplation. The second piece, “D’un vieux jardin” (“Of an Old Garden”) is another musical episode closely related in style. The elegant melody of the opening measures becomes intertwined in fuller harmonic textures, leading into a series of cascading intervals of fourths that spans every register. The third piece “Cortège” (“Procession” or “March”) is a solo piano transcription of a violin and piano duo, written in the same year. The piece, less than two minutes long, is a cheerful and energetic musical episode. Lili gives this piece a positive meaning to the word “cortège,” ending the morceaux with a jubilant celebration.

Lili Boulanger, at the peak of her creativity and promise, tragically died at the young age of 24. Composer Henry Baraud wrote:

“The oeuvre of Lili Boulanger is a monument realized. It is not simply the promise of great work to come, but the achievement of an exquisite body of work by a composer of accomplished style, firmly rooted in a classicism which owes nothing to a School but solely to the natural perception which stems from a penetrating intelligence and talent.”