Composer Samuel Andreyev analyzes Lili Boulanger’s 1914 solo piano piece, D’un vieux jardin. / samuelandreyev / samuelandreyev www.samuelandreyev.com Listen to the complete piece here: • Lili Boulanger - Trois...
So good! I'm going to petition our incoming Music Director here in St Louis, Stéphane Denève, to program some Boulanger. I think he might take to the idea.
I first encountered Lili Boulanger's music when Pie Jesu was used on the sountrack of the Bertrand Tavernier film Béatrice. This was pre-internet, though, so there was little ready at hand to explore. These days her music is easy to find, and she deserves even wider exposure. Thanks for the analysis. This channel continues to confirm my conviction that the 20th century is one of the great periods in music history.
It was a delight to be taken through this by you. Thank you! I first heard of Lili's music over on Thomas Goss's channel, when he analysed her Old Buddhist Prayer (pardon me for not knowing the French offhand!), which is also an amazing piece. She certainly does deserve to be better known - as well-known as Debussy, I would say.
Thank you greatly! Your analysis of Lili Boulanger is so applaudable! You pointed out to us so many intelligent, original subtleties, that I can only feel so puny before a great intelligence! I learned so much from your analysis that it opened huge windows into the "science of music" and its explosive development in the twentieth century. You are so excellent as a Pedagogue, that I say: Please, do bring us more analysis of Lili Boulanger, as well as of other composers of the twemtieth and twenty-first centuries. Thank you, and, applause!
Hi Samuel, Thanks for the great video ! I'm pretty sure French impressionists also borrowed from "jazz", I feel like It was more of a dialectic than just a one way influence. Some cool and interesting texts about this :)
Not really, the impressionist language is a French innovation of itself, there is plenty of evidence early jazz greats like Tatum, Powell, Lou Williams, and Duke Ellington taking influence from the Debussy and Ravel. Jazz became mainstream in the 1920s, well after the impressionists ground breaking works, so it really is a one way influence as to who done it first. They only took the more rhythmic aspects of jazz and applied it to some of their works during the 20s.
Just saw a senior recital of a student doing Clairières dans le ciel. Also, recently saw Ensemble Proton Bern perform at a college. Didn't realize you are the composer of one of the pieces they performed. Great stuff! Would love to see video analysis of: Berio, Babbitt, or Takemitsu. Also, would you ever considering doing a song analysis of Steely Dan?
Wow, wonderful analysis of an interesting piece, thank you very much! Just out of curiosity, are you ever going to make an analysis of an Alban Berg's work? It would be REALLY marvelous to see one!
I was looking at a video of a Roberto Duran bout from the 70's. Howard Cosell did the entire broadcast, extempore, without once saying "uhh". Samuel, you do the same thing. It's a very nice addition to your musical acumen. I'm gonna try it.
Thanks a lot for this video. I have the feeling when I play this piece that she really proceeds like a painter, adding touches of color here and there. There is no voice leading so to speak and you feel it when you play because you have (so to speak) to move your hands rather than your fingers. Playing e.g. Fauré is a completely different thing.
Your analysis are always more than excellent. I know you have many requests, but I would very much like a video about Parmegiani. I think La création du monde is particularly interesting.
Yeah, I've always enjoyed his work. I recently listened again to De Natura Sonorum and La création du monde, and found the last one especially intriguing.
Hey Samuel! Does the fact that the chords are unrelated in traditional terms mean that the composer chooses the chords in an arbitrary way? Or are the choices always based on voice leading? I'm just wondering about the method in general.
One common method is a composer will pick some sort of root movement. Like Samuel said in the video dominant 7 chords moving by whole step, or like sus chords moving by 3rd or half step for example. Also voice leading is a big way to make interesting non functional harmony. Voice leading dense harmony in interesting ways can create something like this.
There's some controversy about Lili's death. Léonie Rosensteil the author of "The Life and Works of Lili Boulanger" attributes her death to "intestinal tuberculous." (I looked it up. It's an actual disease, albeit rare.) Intestinal tuberculous can be mistaken for Crohns Disease, which is an autoimmune disorder. After nearly dying of pneumonia when she was two, she was left a gravely damaged immune system and was ill throughout her life. (For example, she almost died of measles when she was in her early 20s.) Again according Rosenteil, Lili's intestinal tuberculous migrated to her lungs just before she died.
Samuel really appreciate your analyses of Lili Boulangers work. That said, with reference to your jazz comments I'm rather disappointed that you actually are completely unaware of Ragtime music which is one of the precursors of jazz and flourished between 1895 and 1919. As Lili B was born in 1893 the seeds of jazz were long planted and watered for many composers who heard it , including Lil and Nadia Boulanger, to be influenced by it from Ragtime onwards. Moreover many jazz musicians were invited to play in Paris in the 1920's and Composers like Ravel openly acknowledged the influence of jazz in his music. Further to that, John Philip Souza toured Paris around 1908 and Debussy acknowledged the influence of the syncopated rhythms of ragtime he heard in Souza's music. Yes, Debussy used extensions of harmonies as impressionist artists used colors in their art but never in the way jazz musicians used it in its harmonic foundations of color and style. Sadly your misleading and somewhat snobbish assertions of Debussy and jazz are very disappointing. In conclusion, I do acknowledge that all western music and arguably all music does borrow from one era going into another as a natural process of osmosis and growth but claiming authorship and credit in the manner you have characterized it is just simply out of order!
It's a known fact that many jazz artists took from Ravel and Debussy. Almost all the chords they used were heard in Ravel miroirs, Gaspard, and debussys images and preludes.
