The choral psalm settings of Lili Boulanger: A cultural and historical perspective of Psaumes 24, 129, and 130

The influences on the choral psalm settings of Lili Boulanger (1893--1918) came from her own life as well as from several religious, educational, and musical undercurrents of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Boulanger came from a musical family and showed talent in music from a young age. The death of her father early in her life and her own chronic illness are among the formative influences on her career. As a young composer, Lili cultivated a public image of the femme fragile to avoid the cultural and professional prejudices against women that had affected her sister Nadia. This femme fragile image affected her career and the reception of her compositions including Psaume 24 (La terre appartient a l'Eternel), Psaume 129 (Ils m'ont assez opprime des ma jeunesse) , and Psaume 130 (Du fond de l'abime).;Boulanger was Catholic but also showed a great interest in spiritualism. Her interest and participation in religion reflected a larger cultural trend in which women as a whole participated in Catholicism far more than men in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Boulanger's family connections allowed her access to performances and rehearsals of works by some of the most influential composers of the era. The nineteenth century witnessed an increased interest in a historical approach toward religious music, which was then codified by the Catholic Church in a motu proprio. The Schola Cantorum adopted the principles of historicism in religious music into its curriculum, which in turn directly affected the curriculum of the Paris Conservatoire and Boulanger's musical education.;The genesis of the Psaumes is found in other works of religious and non-religious choral music that Boulanger composed, including several early psalm settings that were destroyed. Researching these early psalm settings and the drafts of the completed Psaumes is difficult because so few drafts and manuscripts exist. BnF MS 19435 is particularly helpful in studying the composition process of Psaumes 24 and 130, and it also provides clues about other religious compositions that Boulanger was working on, including other psalm settings.;The Psaumes exemplify many of the cultural and artistic trends discussed in earlier chapters. In particular, they show a direct relationship to the most important tenets of the motu proprio in the clarity of the text settings and the resemblance of musical lines to Gregorian chant. Boulanger also utilized several avant-garde techniques including modal tonalities and the absence of traditional harmonic progressions, plus parallel chords, repeated figures such as ostinatos and motives, fugal counterpoint, and orchestration and tone color.;After Boulanger's death, her sister Nadia took the responsibility of preparing the manuscripts of the Psaumes for performance and publication, and she also organized the premieres and first recordings of the Psaumes. Critical reception of the Psaumes was based less on the music itself and more on Lili's gender and reputation as a femme fragile, especially after she died at the young age of twenty-four. The lectures of the art critic Camille Mauclair, given with Nadia's help before the premieres of the Psaumes, presented Lili as a figure near sainthood, and credited divine power, rather than the composer herself, as the source of her creativity.