Pour les Funerailles d'un Soldat for baritone solo, mixed choir and orchestra Score - Lili Boulanger
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4777
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Lili Boulanger - Pour les funérailles d’un soldat
(b. Paris, 21. August 1893 - d. Mézy, 15. March 1918)
Preface
Marie Juliette Olga “Lili” Boulanger was a French composer and the first female winner of the Prix de Rome composition prize, which allowed to live in Rome for three to five years, all expenses paid. She came from a very influential musical family, mainly on her father’s side. Her mother, Raissa Myshetskaya (Mischetzky), was a Russian princess, who married her Paris Conservatoire teacher Ernest Boulanger (1815–1900), winner of the 1835 Grand Prix de Rome prize, and famous cellist. Lili’s grandfather, Frédéric Boulanger (1777–?), was a noted cellist and professor of voice at the Paris Conservatory, her grandmother Marie-Julie Boulanger, née Halligner, (1786–1850), was a famous mezzo-soprano at the Théâtre de l’Opéra-Comique in Paris, France. Lili was the younger sister of the famous French conductor, teacher, and composer of Nadia Boulanger (1887–1979). Lili suffered a nearly fatal case of pneumonia, which is believed to be from Crohn’s disease, when she was two years old, after which her immune system was compromised for the rest of her life, causing her to fall ill frequently. Famous French composer, organist, teacher, and family friend, Gabriel Fauré (1845–1924) encouraged Lili’s musical education when he found that she had perfect pitch at aged 2 after giving her piano lessons. She studied at the Paris Conservatoire where she learned organ, piano, violin, cello, and harp, and voice. Lily Boulanger composed 24 pieces during her lifetime. The asteroid Lilith 1181 is named after her, and according to astrological readings, it is representation of feminism, fighting for equality for women, confrontation, unconventionalism, and youth.
Boulanger’s Pour les funérailles d’un soldat was composed in 1912 in Paris, when she was 19 years old; however, she kept making edits until 1915. The composition was an assignment given to her by her composition teacher, Georges Paul Alphonse Emilien Caussade (1873–1936), as a sort of test run for the Prix de Rome competition. She was awarded the Prix Lepaulle for the piece in 1913. This is her earliest surviving choral work, of a total of 8 choral works and 4 choral works after this piece. The text comes from the dramatic poem La Coupe et les Lèvres by Alfred de Musset (1810–1857), which Caussade chose for her to use as part of the assignment. There is no evidence to a specific reason he chose the text. The text is from the fourth act of the poem, where the main character, Captain Frank, is disguised as a monk, wears a mask, and gives the eulogy at his own funeral.
Pour les funérailles d’un soldat premiered in November 7,1915 at the Concerts Colonne-Lamoureux in Paris with Gabriel Pierné (1863–1937) conducting, and was considered a great success, both by the public and to critics. The New York Times applauded Boulanger’s “effective use of antique ecclesiastical modes” after a performance in 1918. On Sequenza 21, a website dedicated to contemporary classical music, conductor, composer and pianist Rodney Lister remarked on the piece in 2018 that “the work is a highly dramatic choral realization of the scene with an impassioned envoy to the fallen soldier sung by a baritone soloist, before concluding with a return of the chorus,” showing that even in modern day, the piece has influence and appreciation. While the original score has an unknown location, Boulanger’s diaries are held in Bibliothèque Nationale de France, where her writings on music, which include drafts, sketches, and scores, can be found. The piece was performed mostly during World War I, which started a year after the piece’s premiere, as part of a wartime benefit concert with other pieces she wrote, specifically about the war. Boulanger wanted to encourage women to both stay strong, loyal, and devoted and look forward to the better days ahead while their husbands were at war. Unfortunately, Lili died 8 months before the end of World War I.
The work is scored for solo baritone, SATB choir, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, sarrusophone, 4 horns, 2 cornets, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, chime (B-flat), drums, cymbals, tam-tam, 2 harps, 2 violins, viola, cello, and double bass. It is in D-flat major and has a run time of about 7 to 9 minutes.
The piece, overall, has the feeling of a dirge, a brief song of lament and grief for the dead, while having a funeral march tempo, which is slow with a somber feeling. First, we hear the drums in a funeral march style, before the horns are layered on top, then adding in the rest of the orchestra. The basses are the first voice to come in after the instruments quiet down and simplify in texture, singing the prayer for the dead in the form of a Dies irae musical style in timbre and tone, a medieval hymn that is commonly used as a melodic representation of death in Requiems. Then the strings take over playing the Dies irae melody in plainsong style or a single line of melody with long notes. Plainsong, also called plainchant, with the characteristics of unmeasured rhythm and monophony was developed during the early times of Christianity. Then, harmony is added in the winds, mainly by flute and bassoons, along with drumming interspersed between phrases. The tenors sing after the first section of the song, which starts around 3 minutes into the song, finally adding the rest of the choir after a short while. A more calm, angelic tone is created, played only by the harps and the string quartet to the words “The soul belongs to God”. The priest comes forward, in the form of the soloist, then the drums are silenced. The text, sung by the baritone solo, states that the army may have the body, but heart and soul belong to God. The piece then ends its dirge-like quality in the choir and again adopts a marching rhythm. The dynamics rise with emotion by a building of the instruments and voices. Then, a piano dynamic quiets everyone. The basses repeat the prayer for the dead, while the chorus quietly vocalizes with “ah” in the background. The piece ends in a tapered off pianissimo dynamic, which represents the silence of the soldier’s death.
Leila Koch, 2023
Productdetail
Composer(s):
Publisher(s):
Publishernumber:
4777
ISBN:
073999832488
Number:
715030
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