VULTURE: It’s Time We All Heard the Music of Lili Boulanger
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VULTURE: It’s Time We All Heard the Music of Lili Boulanger

“Boulanger matured early and worked feverishly, and in the time allotted her, produced a handful of masterworks that require no special pleading. They weren’t lost, hidden, or unplayable; they were just treated with a neglect that would be shocking if it weren’t so predictable. The New York Philharmonic hasn’t performed a note of hers in more than 40 years. The last concert of her works on Carnegie Hall’s main stage took place in 1962. Fortunately, this is just the sort of historical injustice that the conductor Leon Botstein loves to rectify, and on May 2, he leads The Orchestra Now in “De Profundis,” a Carnegie Hall concert of works based on Psalm 130. The program concludes with Boulanger’s massive, thrillingly dark setting of the text, which moves from despair (“Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord . . .”) to tremulous hope. Those were the two emotional poles of her life.” —Justin Davidson