This French composer was born into a musical family. Her mother Raissa Mychtesky was a singer, her father Ernest a composer and her sister Nadia music educator and conductor. In her childhood she learned to play the organ, piano, cello, violin and harp. From 1900 on Boulanger began to compose. Being too self-critical she destroyed her own works. Despite her ill health – she contracted chronic pneumonia at the age of two – she obsessed to win the coveted “Prix de Rome” as her father did. In 1913 at the age of 19, she won it for her cantate Faust et Hélène becoming the first woman composer to win the prize. Even though she was such a frail person she wrote with solemnity and grandeur, vivid contrasts and technical mastery, especially in her orchestral writings, where the sensitive handling of large choral and orchestral forces continue to compel admiration.
Produktkategorien zeigen
