Clairières - Songs by Lili and Nadia Boulanger

The Guardian 80

Nicholas Phan/Myra Huang
(Avie)
Tenor Nicholas Phan and pianist Myra Hang do perfect justice to vocal works by the Boulanger sisters, illustrating their contrasting stylistic leanings

Last year, tenor Nicholas Phan and pianist Myra Huang built a recital disc around Fauré’s song cycle La Bonne Chanson. They have followed it with a disc devoted to the songs of two composers who knew Fauré from their childhoods. Lili Boulanger, who died during the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic at the age of 24, is recognised as one of the 20th century’s great unfulfilled talents, while her elder sister Nadia, who died in 1979, went on to become one of its most influential teachers , espousing the doctrine of neoclassicism.