Three Pieces for Harp and Cello

Contents

No. 1 (In E-flat minor)
No. 2 (In A minor)
No. 3 (In C-sharp minor)

Listen

Three Pieces for Harp performed by Catherine and Kyle Anderson.

About the composer

Nadia Boulanger (1887–1979) was a French music teacher and conductor. She taught many of the leading composers and musicians of the 20th century and also performed occasionally as a pianist and organist. Boulanger was the first woman to conduct many major orchestras in America and Europe, including the BBC Symphony, Boston Symphony, Hallé, and Philadelphia orchestras. She conducted several world premieres, including works by Copland and Stravinsky.

From a musical family, she achieved early honors as a student at the Paris Conservatory but, believing that she had no particular talent as a composer, she gave up writing music and became a teacher. After leaving the Conservatoire in 1904 and before her sister’s untimely death in 1918, Boulanger was a keen composer, encouraged by both Pugno and Fauré. Caroline Potter, writing in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, says of Boulanger’s music: “Her musical language is often highly chromatic (though always tonally based), and Debussy’s influence is apparent.”