Les heures claires – The Complete Songs of Nadia & Lili Boulanger

L Boulanger • N Boulanger
Les heures claires: complete songs
Raquel Camarinha (soprano), Lucile Richardot (mezzo-soprano), Stéphane Degout (baritone), Anne de Fornel (piano)
Harmonia Mundi HMM902356.58   189:29 mins (3 discs)

Not long after Lili Boulanger died in 1918 aged just 24, her harshly self-critical and grief-stricken sister Nadia stopped composing, declaring she lacked Lili’s talent. Lili may have been more harmonically daring, but both Boulanger sisters could hold their heads high among their peers. This treasure trove of two discs devoted to Nadia and a third to Lili brings together their complete songs periodically punctuated by violin, cello and piano works.

Pianist Anne de Fornel is the impressive constant factor, capturing the refined emotional nuances of these exquisite works, while mezzo-soprano Lucile Richardot takes the lion’s share of the 55 songs. Beguiling from her first entry in Nadia’s ‘Mon coeur’, she is convincing throughout, burning with controlled passion in Poeme d’amour, playful in ‘Chanson’ and desolate in ‘Soir d’hiver’. Stéphane Degout is equally mesmerising, joining Richardot for ‘Allons voir sur le lac d’argent’, the only duet and one of several first recordings. Appropriately, Richardot and Degout share the songs of Les heures claires, an unusual cycle in being jointly composed by Nadia and Raoul Pugno.

Sarah Nemtanu is a strong advocate for Lili’s violin pieces, while cellist Emmanuelle Betrand reveals Nadia’s Trois Pieces to be a miniature gem. Sadly, it is hard to warm to Raquel Camarinha’s constricted tone and mannerisms in Clairieres dans le ciel, the most substantial of Lili’s works presented here. There are strong alternatives for this cycle, though, and the rest of this set gives unalloyed pleasure.

Christopher Dingle