Rosenstiel’s Nadia Boulanger, a life in music, gives a thorough account of Boulanger’s entire life. She paints a picture of a musician who, despite early success in competitions, would have her composition and performance career ruined by unfortunate circumstances and mistakes. One example of this is a Russian tour where Nadia was to assist Raoul Pugno, her mentor at the time. A tour which may have launched Boulanger’s career, had it not been for Pugno’s death. Boulanger losing both a close friend and the backing she needed to make it as a woman in music. After Pugno’s death, the press described Boulanger as an assistant to Pugno’s compositions, rather than as the collaborator she had been.
This and other events, including the death of her more successful sister lead to Boulanger giving up composition, later claiming that she “wrote useless music”. Rosenstiel laments this, wondering what would have happened if Boulanger’s life had been slightly different. Writing about Boulanger’s choice to prioritize immortalizing her sister’s career over continuing her own: “This professional miscalculation, perhaps once again the result of bad advice, stubbornness, and a misplaced sense of duty, was only one of many that seemed always to bedevil her.” (Rosenstiel 144)
Nadia Boulanger and her sister, Lili Boulanger (1913)
Boulanger transitioned to focus on teaching, where she would ultimately enjoy the most success. Boulanger became a professor of harmony at the French Music School for Americans in Fontainebleau.
Rosenstiel, Léonie. The Life and Works of Lili Boulanger. Rutherford, N.J: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1978.