Pie Jesu

Gabriel Fauré, a regular visitor to the Boulanger household, was a significant figure in Lili’s life. Having discovered that she had perfect pitch when she was two, he took great interest in her musical development and later became one of her composition teachers. She would, of course, have known the Pie Jesu in the Fauré Requiem and it is not unlikely that she was inspired by his example to set the same words – which is not to say that the Fauré and Boulanger settings have much in common. Although they are both written for solo soprano, their instrumental and harmonic colouring is quite different. Indeed, scored for organ, harp and string quartet, the Boulanger sound must have been unique in its time (and probably still is).   

Lili’s last work, her Pie Jesu was dictated to her sister Nadia shortly before she died. She no doubt considered it her own Requiem. It begins in G minor with thirds in the organist’s right hand rising and falling in semitone intervals under an expressive vocal line which becomes more intense, tortured even, on the soprano’s second entry where the voice rises to its highest point. A short instrumental interlude precedes a quiet, plaintive vocal episode over an ostinato pedal on the organ. But then, with a clear change of key to G major, the soprano makes her peacefully slow last entry, reconciled to her fate in spite of the dissonant instrumental colouring added to the G major harmonies.