Book Description

Although she was a performer, a composer, and a conductor of some of the world's great orchestras, it was through her genius as a pedagogue that Nadia Boulanger won renown. Venerated, feared, or opposed, she was as famous as the most prestigious performers, or the best-known conductors. And for the first three-quarters of this century, a host of musicians, young and old, crowded around Boulanger's piano where, with rigor and passion, she revealed a musical universe previously unknown to them. Jerome Spycket's biographical work (originally published in French by Editions Payot, Lausanne, on the centenary of Boulanger's birth) explores the eminent teacher's life through certain key events and through those that formed her circle (Faure, Milhaud, Stravinsky, and Poulenc, to name but a few). A wealth of photographs provides a striking visual history, from the salon of the rue Ballu, to l'Ecole de Fountainebleau, to Boulanger conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of London. The spirit of this remarkable musical force shines through on every page. The wide scope of Jerome Spycket's interests, activities, and tastes infuse his writing with a spirited vitality. He brings to his subjects an independence and a search for truth, providing a genuinely analytical approach to the material. His first biography, Clara Haskil, won an Academie Francaise award and has been translated into several languages. Awarded a prize for literature by the Academie des Beaux-Arts was the original French edition of this work on Boulanger.