Lili Boulanger; Nadia Boulanger - Mélodies (Cyrille Dubois)

Information

Composers: Lili Boulanger; Nadia Boulanger

1. Nadia Boulanger - Prière
2. Nadia Boulanger - Poème d'amour
3. Nadia Boulanger - Versailles
4. Nadia Boulanger - Écoutez la chanson bien douce
5. Nadia Boulanger - Le Couteau
6. Nadia Boulanger - Heures ternes
7. Nadia Boulanger - Soir d'hiver
8. Nadia Boulanger - Élégie
9. Nadia Boulanger - La Mer
10. Lili Boulanger - Quatre Chants: I. Dans l'immense tristesse
11. Lili Boulanger - Quatre Chants: II. Attente
12. Lili Boulanger - Quatre Chants: III. Reflets
13. Lili Boulanger - Quatre Chants: IV. Le Retour
14. Nadia Boulanger, Raoul Pugno - Les Heures claires: I. Le Ciel en nuit s'est déplié
15. Nadia Boulanger, Raoul Pugno - Les Heures claires: II. Avec mes sens, avec mon cœur
16. Nadia Boulanger, Raoul Pugno - Les Heures claires: III. Vous m'avez dit
17. Nadia Boulanger, Raoul Pugno - Les Heures claires: IV. Que tes yeux clairs, tes yeux d'été
18. Nadia Boulanger, Raoul Pugno - Les Heures claires: V. C'était en juin
19. Nadia Boulanger, Raoul Pugno - Les Heures claires: VI. Ta bonté
20. Nadia Boulanger, Raoul Pugno - Les Heures claires: VII. Roses de juin
21. Nadia Boulanger, Raoul Pugno - Les Heures claires: VIII. S'il arrive jamais

Cyrille Dubois, tenor
Tristan Raës, piano

Date: 2020
Label: Aparté
https://www.apartemusic.com/albums/nadia-et-lili-boulanger-melodies

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Review

On Aparté, Cyrille Dubois (tenor) and Tristan Raës (piano) have recorded a collection of twenty-one mélodies by sisters Nadia and Lili Boulanger. Nadia has the lion’s share here with seventeen mélodies and four from Lili. Incidentally, their appearance at the fifth Nadia and Lili Boulanger International Voice-Piano Competition, Paris in 2009 brought Dubois and Raës together as recital partners.

Nadia, had a multifaceted music talent. She was a composer, a conductor, and a renowned teacher who tutored a considerable number of students who themselves became leading composers, conductors and performers. She also performed as soloist on organ and piano. Throughout the ninety-two years of her long-life Nadia was based principally in Paris.

This album contains two sets of Nadia’s mélodies. First is a collection of nine individual mélodies written during the period 1905-22 including two settings each from poets Paul Verlaine and Albert Samain, and a single setting of Nadia’s own text. Quickening the pulse is Versailles, a most attractive Samain setting where Dubois excels with satisfyingly toned singing, producing a beautiful, tender mood which is high on reflection. Enjoyable, too, is Écoutez la chanson bien douce (Listen to the gentle song) with Dubois relishing the Verlaine setting and delivering a fine level of expression, providing a smooth, quick slide to his high register.

In collaboration with Parisian composer Raoul Pugno in 1909, Nadia wrote Les heures claires pour voix et piano, eight settings of French language texts all by the Belgian poet Émile Verhaeren. Here the theme of love weaves through all the poems. Of these Verhaeren settings, my favourite performance is Ta bonté (Your goodness), in which Dubois adeptly creates a mood of compassionate emotion as love blooms.

In 1913 Lili, with her cantata Faust et Hélène, became the first woman to win the Prix de Rome, sharing the award with Claude Delvincourt. By contrast to sister Nadia, who lived to a ripe age of ninety-two, Lili was to die tragically young, aged only twenty-four. Of delicate health throughout most of her short life, Lili wrote over fifty compositions, mainly featuring the voice. They are certainly worth discovering, especially her three Psalm settings and Pie Jesu.

Lili is represented here by her Quatre Chants pour voix et piano, a setting each by poets Bertha Galeron de Calonne and Georges Delaquys, and two by Maurice Maeterlinck. Standing out is the performance of the Delaquys setting Le Retour (The Return) which clearly evokes the music of Debussy. Here Dubois expertly produces an aching sense of expectancy of Ulysses’ safe return by sea to Ithaca.

This is a most satisfying recital by the tenor Dubois, a native French speaker from Ouistreham, Normandy. Dubois studied at Conservatoire de Paris, later joining the Paris Opéra singers’ workshop Atelier Lyrique. In splendid condition, Dubois’ voice is agreeable and smooth, and he rarely over-reaches. Ensuring the text is communicated with accuracy, the tenor is never over-sentimental in this gracious, rather dry-eyed account yet his voice retains sufficient warmth. Performing twenty-one mélodies is a sizable task for a single voice and it might have been worthwhile to share the programme with another voice type(s).

Pianist Raës, a prize-winning student at both the Conservatory de Lille and Conservatoire de Paris, is very much at home in these mélodies from the Boulanger sisters. There is no shortage of charm in these performances together with clear textures and impressive control of dynamics. Raës’ gratifying playing is assisted by the attractive tone of his piano.

Recorded at Palazzetto Bru Zane, Venice, the sound quality is first class, having clarity, presence and balance. In the booklet Dubois and Raës provide a short introductory note and there’s a valuable essay titled ‘Les heures claires’ - Mélodies by Lili and Nadia Boulanger provided by Bru Zane. As usual, the label provides the sung French texts with English translations which are indispensable.

The partnership of Dubois and Raës makes a compelling case for these Boulanger mélodies which deserve to be heard far more often.

-- Michael Cookson, MusicWeb International

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Lili Boulanger (21 August 1893 – 15 March 1918) was a French composer, the younger sister of the noted composer and composition teacher Nadia Boulanger. She was a child prodigy and studied with Gabriel Fauré and Louis Vierne among others. In 1913, at the age of 19, she became the first woman composer to win the Prix de Rome composition prize for her cantata 'Faust et Hélène'. Her work was noted for its colorful harmony and instrumentation and skillful text setting. Her life was troubled by chronic illness, leading to the "intestinal tuberculosis" (Crohn's disease) that cut short at the early age of 24.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lili_Boulanger

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Nadia Boulanger (16 September 1887 – 22 October 1979) was a French composer, conductor and teacher. She is notable for having taught many of the leading composers and musicians of the 20th century. Among her students were those who became leading composers, soloists and conductors, including Aaron Copland, John Eliot Gardiner, Elliott Carter, Dinu Lipatti, Igor Markevitch, Virgil Thomson, İdil Biret, Daniel Barenboim, Philip Glass and Astor Piazzolla. Boulanger also performed occasionally as a pianist and organist, and was the first woman to conduct many major orchestras in America and Europe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadia_Boulanger

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Cyrille Dubois (born 1985 in Ouistreham) is a French tenor. He studied with Alain Buet, Anne Le Bozec and Jeff Cohen at the Conservatoire de Paris. In 2010, Cyrille Dubois became a member of the opera studio at the Opéra National de Paris. Since then, he has sung at La Scala (Milan), the Opéra National de Paris, and at La Monnaie (Brussels). Together with his partner Tristan Raës, Dubois won a prize at the Lili and Nadia Boulanger Competition and three prizes at the Lyon Chamber Music Competition in 2013. Dubois has also appeared with Anne Le Bozec, Jeff Cohen, Michel Dalberto, and Nicolas Stavy.
https://www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Dubois-Cyrille.htm
http://cyrille-dubois.fr/

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