Nadia Boulanger together with her equally gifted sister, Lili, created quite a stir in many areas of French music that had typically been the domain of men. Their father and grandfather had been professors at the Paris Conservatoire, in which steps Nadia followed, though not without a struggle. Their mother, a Russian countess and singer, oversaw their early musical education but also instilled rigid values in them and rarely praised their achievements. Nadia often felt eclipsed by her sister, but devoted herself to promoting her younger sister’s works after Lili’s untimely death at age twenty-four in 1918.

Nadia, however lived until the ripe old age of ninety-two, and became far more influential as a teacher of composition to many of the most renowned composers of the era—Leonard Bernstein, Elliott Carter, Aaron Copland, Roy Harris, and Virgil Thomson, to name just a few of the Americans she taught. She also influenced American musical life by conducting American works while touring the United States in the 1920s. In between the two World Wars she became the first woman to conduct the London Philharmonic Orchestra and famously conducted the première of Stravinsky’s Dumbarton Oaks in Washington (1938). During WWII she resided in the United States, where she guest-conducted the Boston Symphony Orchestra, Philadelphia Orchestra, and New York Philharmonic and taught at Wellesley College, Radcliffe College, and the Juilliard School.

After WWII Boulanger returned to teach at the Paris Conservatory, though she continued to travel internationally in response to a plethora of invitations, even teaching for a time at the Yehudi Menuhin School in England. Failing hearing and eyesight curtailed her activities at the end of her life, but she continued to work almost until her death in 1979.

Boulanger composed her Trois pièces (Three pieces) in 1911 originally for organ, transcribing them for cello and piano in 1914. The Impressionistic opening piece projects a diaphonous effect whose delicacy was much admired by her contemporaries. The gently rippling piano effects complemented by long lines on the muted cello build toward the center point before ebbing. The second piece also projects an air of intimacy, now with a folklike melody whose tiny short-short-long melodic units in the cello are instantly imitated by the piano. The vigorous dance character of the final piece provides complete contrast, propelled by its motoric rhythms. The first section broadens into 5/8 time, its unusual metric feel taken up by the slower middle section now in 5/4. A tantalizing hesitancy brings on a vigorous return of the opening music to round off the piece in ebullient style.

—©Jane Vial Jaffe