Nadia Boulanger Trois Pièces- Marina Thibeault, viola & Corey Hamm, piano

Nadia Boulanger (1887-1979)
Trois pièces for cello and piano
A student of Gabriel Fauré and of Charles-Marie Widor, and the daughter and sister,
respectively, of two Grand Prix de Rome winners, Ernest and Lili Boulanger, Nadia was mainly known as a pianist, organist, conductor, and teacher. Her students included such varied figures as Jean Françaix, Aaron Copland, Elliott Carter, Walter Piston, Virgil Thomson, Astor Piazzolla, Vladimir Cosma, and Michel Legrand.
‘Mademoiselle’, as Nadia was known, came second in the Grand Prix de Rome competition in 1908. She wrote some 50 works, mainly vocal, between 1905 and 1920, but then abandoned composition, claiming her music “wasn’t good enough to be beautiful, nor bad enough to be amusing.” She completed her three pieces for cello and piano in 1913.
The first two of these are actually transcriptions of improvisations for organ: a cantilena
supported by a parallel and syncopated ostinato, and a modal canon played with “bleached-out sonic colors.” The third piece, more rhapsodic, prefigures Claude Debussy’s Sonate pour violoncelle et piano (1915). The transcription of these pieces for viola makes a fine addition to that instrument’s repertoire.
This video was filmed on August 28th 2020 at the Chan Center, at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.

Thank you to the team of the Chan Center and Les Concerts Barachois for making this performance possible.

www.marinathibeault.com

www.coreyhammpiano.com