There are stories that cannot be written and shouldn't be told because the truth of those stories cannot be embraced on first hearing. Our real life intrudes in every detail and we have so little time to give. Yet, here I am proposing to tell you one of those stories. Such is the life of a real person who appeared and vanished as though only dreamed up by an over emotional writer.
Lili Boulanger was born to a father 77 years old! They formed an adoring bond almost from the moment she drew her first breath! What now to tell you that you would believe?
What if I told you her mother was a Russian princess? She was. What if I said her family was swarming with musicality surrounded by great music and the finest composers and performers? They were! 1892 was an unusual time in world history. Especially in Paris.
As to Lili herself? The remarkable French composer Gabriel Faure', who was her mother's music tutor, discovered the 2 year old Lili possessed perfect pitch and an insuperable attraction to everything musical. Yes, 2 years of age when the average child is learning not to mess their own diaper and will perhaps soon be able to walk--Lili was already glowing with prodigious promise of something extraordinary!
That 77 year old father was a teacher in the Paris Conservatory, do you suppose he and his wife would see to it that Lili would have only the most sublime encouragement? Yes, you would be right! Lili learned to sing, play piano, cello, violin and harp instructed by the most able of teachers.
By the time she was 19, Lili was competing for the Prix de Rome. During her performance she collapsed due to illness! She was diagnosed with intestinal tuberculosis. Now this is tragic enough already--is it not? So young, so talented and with such great promise but living in an age when the science of medicine was unequal to the task of restoring her health.
I will now disclose an even greater tragedy; she would only live 6 more years. Her beloved father had died when she was only 6--so great a blow--and now with only a few more years to carry on with her second great love: music itself! What could she possibly accomplish? After all, this was not a time for women to rise to the top of any profession. And, being so young and so ill would prove to be no advantage. What can I say to you now that will make this story worth the telling? Read on, my friend....read on!
First, as an aside, I shall now reveal that her older sister Nadia would grow up to be one of the great music teachers and a composer in her own right. Among her students we find the stellar greatness in the likes of Aaron Copland, Philip Gass, Astor Piazzolla, Quincy Jones, Michel Legrand, Virgil Thompson,Burt Bacharach, Daniel Barenboim, Robert Russell Bennett, just to name a very few!
Had Lili lived longer--what might she have done? We cannot know that, but, we can now give our full attention and consideration to the very reason I have elected to tell this story to you.
I had not previously heard of Lili Boulanger and neither have you, I suspect. Quite by accident I was researching her older sister and ran across Lili's own extraordinary music.
One cannot talk about music to others except to say idle things and to grunt opinions. What I will do for you is one simple thing. I shall give you a reason for curiousity in exploring the compositions of Lili Boulanger--and this for a very good reason: this young ill-fated musical prodigy was fully up to the task of imbuing her own work with an incredibly intense love of life. Her music is delicate, rapturously melodic, numinous with mystical emotion and incredibly well orchestrated.
Oh, I failed to mention. Lili drove herself to recover enough strength to compete for the Prix de Rome again and was the very first womn to win the prize! Her sister, Nadia, passed away in 1979 and was laid to rest beside her sister in Montmartre.
But, enough with words! Try her music and be transported from this Earth to a vision of one-ness with life, nature and the eternal. Let the music wash over you and absorb this brief voice of a young woman so soon departed from life.
Let us celebrate her the transcendence of her genius!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZDoqNJ_MhA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5YQD7XEaEs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eddN4Jey88M Her Buddhist Prayer, and extraordinary work equal to Claude Debussy.