Marie-Juliette Olga "Lili" Boulanger (Aug. 21, 1893 - March 15, 1918) was a French composer, and  sister of the famous composer and teacher Nadia Boulanger. We have featured Lili's works before for Obscure Music Monday, which you can read about here and here, along with more of her background. Lili Boulanger was found to have perfect pitch at age 2, and she led an extraordinary musical life before she died at the young age of 24, studying at the Paris Conservatory (music theory and organ) and studying with Gabriel Faure, who admired her greatly. Musicologists speak of her extraordinary talent and the sophistication of her works, but rarely are they performed in major concert halls.

The piece we are looking at today, Pour les Funerailles d'un Soldat (For the Funeral of a Soldier) is for orchestra (originally piano three hands, but she later orchestrated it), chorus, and baritone solo. Boulanger wrote this when she was only 19 years old. It was given to her as an assignment by George Caussade, one of her Professors at the Paris Conservatory, as a way for her to study and work towards winning the Prix de Rome (which she won, only with a different composition). The work starts solemnly, as a funeral march. The men come in singing, and the strings follow with a plainsong melody. Percussion come in as well, which gives it even more of a funeral march feel. The baritone comes in in the last quarter or so of the piece, and the piece maintains its funeral march pace, which the chorus sings a prayer for the dead, and the work reaches it's dynamic climax at that point. From there, he work tapers off  to a pianissimo at the end, which is to symbolize the soldier's death. It's a solemn, contemplative, and thoughtful composition.

Here is a recording of this piece for you to enjoy:

Orchestre Philharmonique du Luxembourg