Ernest Boulanger was a seventy-year-old teacher at the Paris Conservatoire when he married one of his pupils, a Russian princess. They had two outstandingly talented musical daughters Nadia and Marie-Juliette (Lili). The eldest, Nadia, went on to have a most important career as a teacher, mentor and guide to many significant 20th century composers and performers. Her younger sister Lili, in her tragically short life, showed perhaps even greater promise as a composer being the first woman to win the coveted Prix de Rome, which her father had won in 1835. The four pieces, arranged for string orchestra by Andrew Moore, were all written before Lili was twenty and inevitably show influences of Saint-Saëns, Fauré and Debussy but also give a clear indication of an emerging personal style, more associated with Symbolism than with Impressionism. These pieces are characterised by great lyricism, harmonic versatility and emotional depth. Saint-Saëns apparently gave Lili this advice: to write songs effectively musical talent is not enough, ‘you must study the French language in depth; it is indispensable’. Though these pieces are songs without words they certainly have a French voice.

1. D’un Vieux Jardin 2. D’un Jardin Clair 3. Nocturne 4. Cortège