Me and Nadia Boulanger

by James R. Carley

My first encounter with the great lady was in 1946 at Union Theological Seminary in New York City where she gave a lecture on the Fauré Requiem. I was studying there, working on the dissertation for my doctorate in sacred music from Union. Boulanger stood at a grand piano playing passages as she talked. Afterwards I told her I wanted to study with her. She said, "Oh, I cahnt!" She would shortly be going back to her home in Paris. But she suggested a couple of old music specialists - one of them Yves Tinayre, with whom I did study. A little later, she ran to catch up with me on Fifth Avenue with another suggestion. Then, as we walked along together, we passed a shop with exquisite baby clothes in the window. When she discovered that I had a little baby girl, she wanted to buy a dress for her. That didn't seem proper to me so I wouldn't let her. That was a foolish decision, wasn't it?

The next occasion, I heard her giving a program, something about choral music, on the radio. Time was up, but she was not quite finished with a point she was making and she sputtered a bit when the operator insisted on closing off. When I told her about this, years later, she did not remember it.

Then in 1963, the year my wife and younger daughter and I spent in Salzburg, Austria at the Orff Institute, I arranged to have some time with Boulanger. The question: what should we do? Coach my singing, look at my compositions, my conducting? We decided to work on Erik Satie's Socrate. We made dates and I bought two copies and started studying.

I found a place to stay in Paris for ten days. I didn't have money to buy much in the way of food. Everything seemed very expensive to me. The day of my first lesson I took a bunch of roses. I had left them in an anteroom, and the maid interrupted to ask if they shouldn't be put into water.

Of course, much of the time was spent perfecting the French I was singing. I took lots of notes - which she noticed. I asked questions about Satie. One day she wondered if she had found the person to do her memoirs. I didn't pick up on this; the thought of having to cope with French was too much.

I attended one of her Tuesday evenings, when her students would gather to go through music together. When I entered she pointed to a chair saying, "You sit there." When the man doing the sight-reading at the piano fumbled a little she scolded him. One of her best students would have been playing the difficult score, and she showed a little impatience when he goofed. Nothing but perfection was acceptable.

Another interesting bit: She said that when Stravinsky was working on his innovative pieces, he told her how terribly difficult it was for him.

When the opening of a new opera by a well-known French composer (I am not sure which one) occurred, I went with her. On the street many people recognized her. She would say to me, "That was so and so." One woman had a wistful look on her face that said, "Oh, that is her latest new one."

I did not find the opera very interesting, and when asked, said I thought it seemed conventional, there was not much original about it. She said, "Oh, that is something I hadn't noticed." I am sorry not to have the actual words of that exchange, but that is the tone.

On Socrate, we were considering my understanding and singing of it. Lots of give and take - it was very pleasant. At one lesson she and I were waiting together for use of the studio where someone was playing piano. She pointed out to me, gratuitously, that the pianist was "lifting away" at phrase endings, just as she teaches. (This has been very important to me.)

She had an admirable personality - well-mannered, musical, and intelligent. She invited me to dinner at her home. Elegant service and food, and a suitable wine. She had her own cook.

At my last lesson we still had much of Socrate to cover, and we covered it, while students piled up in the waiting room. They, of course, had been able to hear me, and they looked curiously as we came out.

She suggested that she would prefer to be paid in cash. But I already had a cashier's check made out. At some point she said, "They usually stay a little longer." I don't remember much of what I said on these occasions, but I am sure there were grateful thank-you's.

The last time I saw her was at Oxford during my next Sabbatical in 1968. She gave an evening address, which my wife Isabel and I attended. She spoke in English, and about half way through she said, "Oh, I forgot - they asked me to speak in French." Of course, everybody laughed, and she switched languages. Her French was as good as her English, unsurprisingly. I felt pretty sure she recognized me, but she made no indication that she wished to speak.

I made no direct use of my acquaintance with Socrate. I didn't sing it in public, or teach it. However, it was a good choice. And that week was one of the most important weeks of my life. We probably had five sessions, every other day I was in Paris, and I could study the score and practice in between.

After having written this, I got out the score and looked over the vocal part of Mort de Socrate (the section we worked on), then played through the piano part. And then it occurred to me that just possibly the reason Boulanger kept her students waiting so long that day was to give them a chance to hear the work.

About the Author:

As a young man, James Carley expected to be a potter, but the Great Depression and World War II changed his plans. Upon his discharge from the Army Air Corps after the war, he lived with his wife and two young children in New Mexico, Oregon, and East Texas. He taught choral works and voice at Pacific University, Forest Grove, Oregon and North Texas State University, Denton, Texas. Also a choir director and private voice teacher, from 1953 until his retirement he was professor of sacred music at an ecumenical seminary, Christian Theological Seminary, Indianapolis, Indiana. In the 1960's he instituted an annual, state-wide Children's Choir Festival. He also organized and led a small ensemble, the Carley Consort, performing early and Renaissance, traditional and modern, vocal and instrumental music. A retrospective multi-disk compilation CD of Consort performances is currently in production.

Carley is a longtime member of the National Association of Teachers of Singing. Since retiring to Western North Carolina in 1973, he has remained active musically, establishing a community choir and a concert series, performing in small ensembles for early music, and concentrating on composing. He lives with his wife near Asheville, NC, and writes canons, and songs for unaccompanied voice set to interesting English-language poetry. You may contact the author in care of the Newsletter's Editor (his youngest) at editor@arts4all.com

Resources:

Composer, teacher and conductor, Nadia Boulanger (1887 - 1979) began formal musical training at the Paris Conservatory when she was ten years old, studying composition with Fauré. She began teaching there in 1909, when she was 22. Also a teacher (later its director) at the American Conservatory in Paris, she was friends with Igor Stravinsky and Francis Poulenc and taught the American composers Aaron Copland, Virgil Thompson, and Elliot Carter. She was the first woman to conduct such orchestras as the Royal Philharmonic of London and the Boston Symphony Orchestra and, at Copland's request, was the organist at the 1925 premiere of his Symphony for Organ and Orchestra. She spent the war years in the US, teaching at Wellesley and Radcliffe, and returned in 1946 to Paris where she became director of the American Conservatory and, later, a private teacher of composition and conducting. She died in Paris at the age of 92.

For more information on Nadia Boulanger, consult the Internet or your library. One short biography can be found at

http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/music_history/24659

In October 2000, 62 of Boulanger's letters to composer and conductor Karel Husa were contributed as part of a larger contribution to Ithaca College School of Music, Ithaca, New York. Husa came from Czechslovakia to Western Europe and from there to Ithaca College where he began teaching in 1967.