The piece ‘Of A Sad Evening’ by the composer Lili Boulanger is harrowing. Its desolate atmosphere conveys the tragedy of its composer’s life: she would die at 24, shortly after composing this piece. For a listener, it’s intense and powerful. In this episode I share insights into the piece, we continue to discover the different types of pieces orchestras play, and I answer the question ‘What is Orchestration?’.

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Hi! My name’s Scott Wilson. I’m a conductor and I’m passionate about classical music. In this podcast we discover the music of one of our greatest artforms. We listen to a new piece in each episode, I share insights into the music, and over time, I’ll take you on a journey through classical music’s composers, musicians, and history. Everything’s discussed in an easily digestible way, and no prior knowledge is needed. This podcast is for you!

Today we’re listening to the piece ‘Of A Sad Evening’ by the composer Lili Boulanger. The atmosphere is desolate, reflecting the tragedy of the life of its composer. Boulanger would die at the age of 24 soon after composing this piece. Listen to the power and the intensity of this music:

[music excerpt]

The music trudges along. There’s resistance in every step. Just now we heard the first of many climaxes in the piece. And by this I mean that they’re climaxes of a sort. The problem is, they have no resolution. An attempt to achieve something has been made, but soon after, the music dissipates. We return to the exhausting march forwards. Onwards without hope.

Now that’s a pretty bleak assessment! But as ever, music can provide a safe way of experiencing extreme emotions.

If we listen a little further along in the piece, it sounds like some kind of nightmare. Initially the music feels stuck: we hear something, and then we hear it again exactly the same. Later the music seems to pull you round and round like you’re in the vortex of a whirlpool. It’s another hopeless climax. 

[music excerpt]

Perhaps another way to hear this music is with a kind of narrative. The central character is striving to overcome a problem. As the intensity builds, the character’s attempts to get to some kind of resolution become more desperate. We sense their exasperation and feel their fear.

But these descriptive words don’t do justice to the music. The music communicates to each one of us in a complex and individual way, and we can’t reduce our reaction merely into words. What strikes me though, is how much this piece seems to echo what the composer’s experience of life must have been. Boulanger was chronically ill. Bronchial pneumonia at the age of two led to a weakened immune system, and she developed Crohn’s Disease. Much of her time was spent seeking relief from pain. She was also aware that her life was likely to be cut short.

When I listen to this piece, I hear the emotions that I presume Boulanger had. There’s a relentless sadness in the music; and there are moments that seem to convey an almost unbearable struggle. Listen to the music that directly follows what we heard a moment ago:

[music excerpt]

That instrument we heard at the end there is quite rare within an orchestra. Played by a percussionist, that was a tam-tam. It’s a large, unpitched gong. Isn’t it wonderful at conveying a vast panorama. Perhaps that character from my narrative before has persevered to the top of a mountain, only to arrive at the sheer drop of a cliff-face. They look out at a vast nothingness ahead of them.

Let’s listen again to what we just heard, but a little longer now, beyond the expansive sound of the tam-tam.

[music excerpt]

Surely those powerful notes on the timpani and bass drum are some kind of death toll. And if I continue to compare this piece to Boulanger’s life, I reckon this moment represents her awareness of looming death.

But, despite her situation, Boulanger was known to be immensely determined. As a child she set out to win the most prestigious competition for composers: the Prix de Rome. She audited classes at the Paris Conservatoire before she was old enough to attend, and ultimately, at age 19, she became the first woman to win the competition. By all indications this brilliant composer would’ve gone on to become one of the twentieth century’s greatest. Just imagine the impact she would’ve had for female composers. Historically there’ve been few, and Boulanger certainly would’ve contributed to breaking that glass ceiling. And then, of course, there’s the music we’ll never hear. Her death in 1918 - five years after winning the Prix de Rome - was a tragedy for the artform. She’s the composer that might have been.

Now, if this piece has an explicit meaning, the only person who could’ve known it is Boulanger herself. The music doesn’t come from an opera or a ballet, and isn’t inspired by a story or poem. Concertos and Symphonies also fit that criteria, but those pieces are built on a much larger scale. And as part of our ongoing discovery of the different types of pieces orchestras play, I’ll be discussing Concertos and Symphonies in the next two episodes. But in this episode we’re listening to what I call a Concert Piece. It’s a self-contained piece without any explicit meaning, that has a form or shape that’s built specifically for this piece alone.

Insight into the piece is provided by its title. This piece’s title - Of A Sad Evening - could, of course, mean many different things. Maybe the music represents some kind of invented narrative to do with a specific evening? Or maybe it refers to an overall feeling or emotion in the piece. Does it represent the evening of the composer’s life? The brilliance of pieces like these - ones I call Concert Pieces - is that you’re given free reign on interpretation, with the title providing a useful guidepost for beginning your journey through the piece.

The music that comes next has a different atmosphere to what we’ve heard previously. Have a listen. 

[music excerpt]

Following on from previous episodes where I’ve been discussing how music works, we’ve arrived at our subject for today: orchestration. This is the process of choosing the instruments that play at a particular moment in a piece. It’s one of the ways a composer creates atmosphere or emotion in music.

I’ll play the melody on the piano.

[music excerpt]

Many instruments in the orchestra are able to play this melody. But Boulanger decided that a single violin would play it at this moment. Here it is:

[music excerpt]

Immediately afterwards the melody transfers to a cello. Now listen to it played on this instrument.

[music excerpt]

Why move the melody to a cello? Why not keep it on a violin? Or why not choose any one of the many other instruments in the orchestra to play this melody? The answer is because Boulanger wanted the particular sound of those instruments. Boulanger felt that the unique sound of the violin followed by the unique sound of the cello would be captivating; that those instruments would convey the ideal emotion to the listener at this moment in the music.

Let’s hear it again now. Listen to how the colour of the sound changes when the melody moves from the violin to the cello. A different sound creates a subtly different emotional response in the listener. The meaning of the melody changes for the listener, depending on what instrument plays it.

[music excerpt]

Musicians describe sound in terms of its colour. Colour isn’t a particularly intuitive way of describing sound, but it correlates well with visual art. For example, if we were to ask an artist to paint a representation of the music from the beginning of this piece, perhaps they’d mainly choose dark colours to represent the music’s sadness. Black, dark blues and greens, and maybe the starkness of white as well. And perhaps small streaks of reds or oranges would be used to represent the fighting spirit that’s in the climaxes.

Composers think about colours of sound in a similar way. They choose different colours or shades of colour - meaning, they choose different instruments or combinations of instruments - to communicate different atmospheres or emotions. The process of assigning the music to different instruments is called ‘orchestration’.

So let’s go a little further. On the piano I’m going to play the music which accompanies the melody we heard before. It sounds like this:

[music excerpt]

It really doesn’t sound very nice at all. This music just doesn’t work when played on piano. But when Boulanger orchestrates it, it transforms. She uses her aural imagination, searching for the right combination of instruments - the right colours - to create a beautiful sound-world for this moment.

This time I want you to focus on the lowest line. You’ll hear this:

[music excerpt]

It’s being played by the violas. Half of them are plucking their strings, and the other half are rapidly, but quietly pushing and pulling their bows back and forth across the strings.

[music excerpt]

It’s quite difficult to hear, so let’s listen again. Here’s the lowest line played on the piano:

[music excerpt]

It’s played by the violas. Half of them are plucking their strings, and the other half are scraping their bows rapidly back and forth creating a kind of nervous sound.

[music excerpt]

Now, above that, you’ll hear this:

[music excerpt]

But now listen to it orchestrated. The composer has assigned this music to the harp and the celeste. The celeste is the kind of metallic piano sound you can hear.

[music excerpt]

So, something that sounded rather plain and not very successful when played on the piano, comes to life when orchestrated by a composer. Boulanger has created a captivating atmosphere in this moment. This has been achieved by assigning the music to violas who are plucking their strings, to violas who are using their bows, and to a harp and a celeste.

When we listen a little further along in the piece, we’ll hear these same instruments playing the accompaniment. Enjoy the rich sound created by Boulanger’s orchestration!

[music excerpt]

Halfway through that excerpt you may have noticed that the sound became thicker and less transparent. It’s that - the texture of the music - that I’ll discuss in the next episode.

In the meantime, let’s take a look at the conductor’s role in realising the composer’s orchestration. Conductors have the benefit of reading from a score where they can see all the music that’s being played by the orchestra. It’s the conductor’s job to make sure the musicians are playing at volumes that allow each of the instruments to be heard simultaneously by the audience. This is one of the more challenging aspects of my job, mainly because there’s no limit to how much you can train your ear to be sensitive to the minute details within the music. The aim is always to ensure that all of the colours imagined by the composer can be appreciated by the listener.

Right, we’re approaching the end of the piece. Music from the opening returns now, but with an increased level of intensity.

[music excerpt]

There’s so much anguish in the music. Is it the emotions felt by the composer? Did she know the end was near?

As it turns out, we’re indebted to Lili Boulanger’s sister, Nadia, for the survival of her music. Nadia would promote Lili’s music throughout the rest of her life. If she hadn’t done so, it’s likely that today we’d only remember Nadia. Nadia - Lili’s older sister - went on to become the most important teacher of music in the 20th century. She guided many of the world’s greatest musicians and composers, and decades after her death, she continues to influence countless musicians. Like so many others, I’ve been affected by her legacy: her teachings were passed to me by one of my most important teachers, who himself was one of her students. 

We’ll now hear the final one of this piece’s climaxes-without-resolution. There’s no arrival here, just the feeling of being completely overwhelmed with intense emotion.

[music excerpt]

The winding down of the music after the tormented climax is when I’m particularly moved. It’s painful. At the climax, the intensity is high, but it then fades again. We don’t seem to arrive. The music just dies away.

It goes on like this for a little while longer. But just as we’re about to give up hope, perhaps there’s a glimmer of relief, maybe even optimism. We arrive at music that sounds almost peaceful. You’ll hear the pitch rising. And just before the end, there’s two final heartbeats. In the final chord, it’s as if Boulanger is composing the music of the heavens.

[music excerpt]

It’s a beautiful ending. Just in those last few seconds, everything appears okay again. Lili Boulanger has arrived. We’ve arrived. The music has achieved resolution.

Thank you for being with me for another episode of A Thousand Pictures. If you have questions or would like to make a suggestion of a piece or topic for a future episode, please get in touch via social media or email feedback@athousandpictures.com. Further information, a link to the recording featured in today’s podcast, and suggestions about what to listen to next can be found at athousandpictures.com. Or subscribe to our email list and you’ll receive this information directly to your inbox.

Today we’ve been listening to ‘Of a Sad Evening’ composed by Lili Boulanger. I recommend the recording by the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Yan Pascal Tortelier.

And finally, please subscribe, please rate and review, and please share this podcast with others. Your support is valuable and it’s appreciated: together we can create a community which celebrates classical music! Now go and listen to this wonderful piece, and get out there and hear a performance by your local orchestra!

[music excerpt]