D’un matin de printemps

Music history is sadly full of stories of brilliant composers whose lives were cut tragically short. Felix Mendelssohn and George Gershwin both died at 38; George Bizet died at 36, never knowing that his opera Carmen would become perhaps the most celebrated opera of all time. Mozart was only 35 when he left us, and Franz Schubert a mere 31. Despite their early deaths, each of these composers left behind a substantial catalog of works, many of which remain among the most beloved music ever composed. Not so the brilliant French composer Lili Boulanger, who had just begun to set the music world on fire when Crohn’s disease took her at the tender age of 24.

Lili was the second child of two professional musicians. Her father, Ernest Boulanger, was a composer of some note, and her mother was a contralto. Her older sister Nadia also composed and would eventually become known worldwide as one of the preeminent composition teachers of the 20th century. Lili’s talent was recognized early, but a bout with bronchial pneumonia at age two left her physically frail. Her weakened condition meant that her musical studies were mostly done at home, as she was not physically strong enough to undertake the normal curriculum at the Paris Conservatory. She did manage to enroll in one composition class from 1911 to 1913, however, and at the conclusion of that class she submitted her cantata Faust et Hélène for consideration for the Prix de Rome, an enormously prestigious prize that funded a residency for composers to study in Rome. It was the most coveted composition award in all of Europe, and her father had won it in 1835. Incredibly, she was awarded the top prize in the Prix de Rome that year, the first woman ever to do so. The resulting attention and headlines in the international press were extraordinary. Lili was 19 years old.

Her residency at the Villa Medici in Rome was unfortunately cut short by the outbreak of World War I. When she eventually returned, her health began to collapse, and she had to head home to Paris, where she struggled to continue composing. It was shortly after undergoing an appendectomy in 1917 that she wrote two brief companion pieces, D’un soir triste (Of a Sad Evening) and D’un matin de printemps (Of a Spring Morning). They would be among her final compositions, as she died mere months after their completion.

While D’un soir triste is an understandably somber work, D’un matin de printemps is the definition of joy. The bustling energy of new life is everywhere as chirping woodwinds, delicate percussion, muted strings, celeste, and harp combine in delicious, sweeping gestures—a whirlwind of activity as life, large and small, reawakens. Like Debussy and her fellow Impressionist composers, Boulanger makes ample use of the woodwinds with swirling melodies punctuated by muted brass, creating a churning sea of timbres. The work’s end is particularly unique as the orchestra cedes to a sweeping harp glissando, leading to a final exclamation point from the whole ensemble. A mere two months from death, a weakened Lili Boulanger composed a love letter to the energy of new life, making us all wonder what else she could have accomplished, if she’d only had more time.