Tragic young Lili, first woman to win the Prix de Rome and the most exciting young composer of her generation who died of TB at the age of 24.
The Prix de Rome ran in the family. Her father was a composer and conductor who was 77 when she was born, in Paris, in 1893. Her grandparents were a famous cellist and mezzo soprano. Her older sister was Nadia Boulanger, the famous future teacher; her mother was a Russian princess. She learnt to read music before her alphabet - - age two. The sister Nadia, sworn by their father to protect the baby always, would take her along with her to classes at the Conservatoire as a little four-year-old and by the time she was six, she could play the harp, piano, cello and violin.
But it was also when she was six, that she contracted the pneumonia that would eventually kill her. It meant that she couldn’t study at the Conservatoire until she was 19, so ill had she been right throughout her childhood. It meant that when she first competed for the Prix de Rome with her first cantata, that same year, she collapsed in the performance and had to withdraw. It meant that when she next competed for the prize with her second cantata – and won – three years in Rome, staying at the Villa Medici with a studio and all expenses paid – she couldn’t take it up. She was the first woman in history to win and she was too ill.
And all this comes through in her music, much left unfinished. What she did manage to finish are thrilling cantatas of tremendous confidence, and beauty, and skill, alongside heart-breakingly poignant songs and piano pieces with titles like this, “Of a sad evening.” She knew she didn’t have long
MUSIC: D’un soir triste
Neave Trio
Presented by Anna Clyne
Written and produced by Charlotte Wilson for WMHT
