Boulanger

From Monteverdi to Brahms via French Baroque rarities: the Decca Gold (US) legacy of a complete musician, newly remastered and issued complete for the first time, with fascinating liner notes by Nigel Simeone. Original Jackets, Limited Edition.

This is Lucile Boulanger’s first solo recital. The French gambist, universally praised for her natural and moving playing – BBC Music Magazine even described her as ‘the Jacqueline du Pré of the viola da gamba’ – juxtaposes Bach with Carl Friedrich Abel, a great master of the bass viol and a close friend of the Bach family. Although Johann Sebastian never wrote for solo viola da gamba, we know that he transcribed many of his works for other instruments. So Lucile Boulanger has chosen, for example, to transcribe three dances from the Sixth Suite, ‘because it sounds particularly good on the viol, being written for five-stringed cello (a step towards the six or seven strings of the viol?). It is in D, the viol key par excellence, and its style, already somewhat galant , is reminiscent of Abel… This album gives me the opportunity to showcase the viol as both a melodic instrument – with the grain of the bow, the fragility of tone – and a polyphonic one.’

Lili Boulanger's setting of the 130th Psalm is a choral masterpiece. Tortelier and his forces deliver a vivid performance, recorded with tremendous presence. There is even more power in the old Markevich performance, done under Nadia Boulanger's supervision, but the superior Chandos recording makes a difference. Faust et Hélène is a somewhat immature student work (a strange qualification for music by a composer who died at 24), but it is also well performed. The remaining music represents Boulanger's visionary eloquence. This disc is highly recommended as an introduction to a great composer. After you hear it, try the Everest disc, despite the duplications. It contains Boulanger's deathbed Pie Jesu, a brief piece of such intense power that it will leave most listeners in tears.

An emblematic figure of her time, Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979) taught and inspired several generations of musicians, from Igor Stravinsky to Quincy Jones. Her musical and pedagogical philosophy, demanding yet highly stimulating, influenced the entire twentieth century. Astrig Siranossian, a rising star of the cello who now joins Alpha for several recordings, is fascinated by this musical personality whom everyone respectfully called ‘Mademoiselle’. She met some of her most illustrious students, including the late Michel Legrand, and Daniel Barenboim who has agreed to accompany her in a piece on the album. With the pianist Nathanaël Gouin, she has devised a very eclectic programme, including the three pieces for cello and piano written by Nadia Boulanger in 1915, three years before the death of her sister Lili.

Nadia and Lili Boulanger, each in her own way, made a lasting impact on the musical world of the twentieth century. Sometimes luminous and full of hope, sometimes more somber, all their works testify to a poignant humanity. Going beyond the mélodies, Lucile Richardot, Anne de Fornel and the other artists assembled for this edition offer a multi-faceted portrait of the two composers, a form of musical narrative containing pieces that have never been published or recorded before.

Tenor Cyrille Dubois and pianist Tristan Raës bring together Nadia and Lili Boulanger's finest works as they release their new record. The precocious early talent that is reflected in these mélodies echoes to their singular path. Nourished from Debussy and Fauré, these pieces also show a remarkable boldness and unusual nature that would probably have given birth to the most striking works of the twentieth century, if Lili's life hadn't been taken away aged 24, leading her sister Nadia to stop composing.

In her debut recording for harmonia mundi, Lucile Boulanger explores the facets of Antoine Forqueray’s career as a virtuoso instrumentalist: adept in a wide range of Italian repertoire and skilled at transcribing works originally intended for the violin, he could try it on for size, as it were, before settling on a different medium.