Lili Boulanger was one of the most fascinating – and tragic – of female twentieth-century composers. The first woman to win the Prix de Rome in 1912, for the work on this London Philharmonic Orchestra programme, Faust et Hélène, her career would be cut short by near constant illness, and she would die at just 24 from tuberculosis. Boulanger’s music, neo-Romantic yet with undertones of Symbolism as opposed to Impressionism, reflects strongly her view of the world: one of isolation and alienation, even if the model and style can sometimes err towards the soundscape of Debussy (as in the concert’s opening piece, D’un matin de printemps).
Indeed, D’un matin de printemps (1918) – of which a companion piece D’un soir triste was written at the same time – rather encapsulates in six short minutes the radiance of which this composer was capable, no matter how transient the music makes this sound. Karina Canellakis secured lush playing from the LPO to begin with, focusing on gorgeous tone from the flutes at the beginning, and restrained, yet sonorous, strings in the ostinato phrases which followed. Solos were statuesque – from the harp, and especially the cello. If there is much poetry to be heard in the middle section, and Canellakis let the LPO’s strings off the leash here, this is in a sense music with Boulanger’s alienation imposed on it: cut short, the passionate tone is replaced by what will become the work’s climax, before and explosive end to the work takes us into an altogether darker mood.
How beautifully this segued into the profound opening of her half hour cantata, Faust et Hélène where the influence of Wagner (especially Parsifal and Tannhäuser) is so clear from the start. The leitmotif that opens the cantata is dark, equivocal – but it has all of the power of premonition and of the disaster that runs through the work, from the storm scene to the dramatic march of the ghosts who have died for Hélène. Boulanger manages to incorporate a love scene and a trio into the cantata, but no matter how radiant some of this music is (an influence of Debussy in part), the disaster which has been foreshadowed from the opening bars is never overwhelmed. The leitmotif returns in the closing bars on Méphistophélès’s last words.
The performance was an exquisite one – and exceptionally well cast, with all three soloists as near perfect as I can remember in a performance of this work. Much of the heavy lifting is done by the tenor – as Faust – here sung by the only non-French singer, Andrew Staples. With much of the part resting high in the register, Faust is a demanding sing, not least after he awakens from his dream about Hélène. Here, Staples was gloriously secure above the bar line, ecstatic in his melody, the arch of his voice impeccable. There was no lack of lyricism to his tenor, either. The duet – in E major – was enormously passionate, reaching intensely Wagnerian heights. Véronique Gens, as Hélène was often sumptuous of tone, deeply expressive and with a rich detail to her singing that brought much flesh to Hélène’s character. The voluptuousness of the voice, especially during the duet, acted as a counterbalance to the neutral tone which often marks out the part. Jean-Sébastien Bou, as Méphistophélès, was a lighter toned baritone than might have been ideal for my taste but there was no denying his on-stage presence, his depth of characterisation or the beauty of tone he did produce. As a foil to Faust he sometimes felt tonally close in colour – some extra darkness would have been welcome, the harmony just a touch deeper – but in the moments that mattered, such as the Trio, he was superlative, and just chilling in his final line of the cantata. The LPO under Canellakis were in wonderful form.
The coupling for this Boulanger concert was a slightly odd one – Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. Of course, date-wise, this 1913 work comes just a year after Faust et Hélène and five years before D’un matin de printemps, but Boulanger and Stravinsky are poles apart in their treatment of how chords work, how rhythms dictate the flow of music and how dissonant a score would become. Boulanger’s neo-Romanticism is replaced by something entirely modernist and utterly barbaric.
I can be notoriously fussy about interpretations and performances of the Rite of Spring in concert but Canellakis and the LPO gave one that was generally very fine. Her view of the work is highly gaunt, and she emphasises savagery and brutality – not to say sheer dissonance – over any soundscape which attempts to tame these. Having said that, rhythms weren’t always spot on – and there were times when she seemed to linger over passages – especially during ‘Rituals of the Ancestors’ – for no obvious effect.
Woodwind were very pronounced throughout, anarchic at times, and ricocheting through the orchestra: clarinets cut like glass, flutes were squawking in their belligerent way; oddest of all, the bassoon solo which opens the Rite of Spring hardly floated in from the icy silence, rather it felt heavy and dense and oh so very stark. I could have done with even more power in the string chords that opened ‘The Augurs of Spring’ – the staccato not quite heavy enough. ‘Ritual of Abduction’ sometimes struggled with the lack of rhythm in the music, but there was no denying the terrifying horror that Canellakis conjured up as she made every disruption sound so natural. Where the performance hit the running for me was in the treatment of the timpani – beginning with the bass drum thuds of ‘Ritual of the Rivals’ and continuing in a magnificent performance of ‘Glorification of the Chosen One’, which was ferocious, savage and just colossally raw. Rhythms were as tight as the bass drum that was used to devastating effect. Meter was scrupulous in ‘The Summoning of the Ancestors’. ‘Sacrificial Dance’, especially the five bar introduction to it where so many conductors come to grief, found Canellakis on magnificent form: she was electrifying holding this music together, visceral, the syncopations somehow finding the right beat. The timpani were inexorable, brass thrilling, and Canellakis rooted out any idea this would be an anticlimax.
One of the finest Rite of Springs I have heard in recent years, and a superlative end to a memorable concert.
Marc Bridle
Lili Boulanger – D’un matin de printemps; Faust et Hélène
Igor Stravinsky – Rite of Spring
Véronique Gens (soprano); Andrew Staples (tenor); Jean-Sébastien Bou (baritone); London Philharmonic Orchestra; Karina Canellakis (conductor)
Royal Festival Hall, London, 22 October 2025
Top image: Véronique Gens. Photo by Sandrine Expilly.