Boulanger’s style

Voice: The work which won

Boulanger the Prix de Rome,

Faust et Hélène, uses a trademark combination of tenor and contralto, exploiting the large crossover in register between the highest male voice and lowest female voice, the two criss-crossing at times. Her setting of Psalm 130 Du fond de l’abîme, also with tenor and contralto soloists, has a similar moment. Modal lines: Boulanger was drawn both to plainchant and noneuropean motifs. Her Pour les funérailles d’un soldat, for example, is a military-style work in which male voices predominate, but in which the dominant tonal context is complicated by the presence of modal inflections.

Not all serious: Boulanger’s work is predominantly quite dark, often preoccupied with death and doomed love. But her Marche gaie, for instance, makes use of a musical pun – an echo of a theme in Mendelssohn’s Wedding March (below) – and is spirited and joyful. Masculine music?:

Interest in Boulanger’s illness and traditional views on femininity have tended to seep into analyses of her music. However, full-on scoring for brass, compelling homophonic choral writing, and driving rhythms in her Psalm settings show the composer at her most dramatic and commanding.