Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Although she was a performer, a composer, and a conductor of some of the world's great orchestras, it was through her genius as a pedagogue that Nadia Boulanger won renown. Venerated, feared, or opposed, she was as famous as the most prestigious performers, or the best-known conductors. And for the first three-quarters of this century, a host of musicians, young and old, crowded around Boulanger's piano where, with rigor and passion, she revealed a musical universe previously unknown to them. Jérôme Spycket's biographical work (originally published in French by Editions Payot, Lausanne, on the centenary of Boulanger's birth) explores the eminent teacher's life through certain key events and through those that formed her circle (Fauré, Milhaud, Stravinsky, and Poulenc, to name but a few). A wealth of photographs provides a striking visual history, from the salon of the rue Ballu, to l'École de Fountainebleau, to Boulanger conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra of London. The spirit of this remarkable musical force shines through on every page. The wide scope of Jerome Spycket's interests, activities, and tastes infuse his writing with a spirited vitality. He brings to his subjects an independence and a search for truth, providing a genuinely analytical approach to the material. His first biography, Clara Haskil, won an Academie Francaise award and has been translated into several languages. Awarded a prize for literature by the Académie des Beaux-Arts was the original French edition of this work on Boulanger.

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CHOICE Review

Through the use of a myriad of photographs, quotations, and facsimiles of complete letters, J'erome Spycket weaves a glittering and lively tapestry of the woman who had an immeasurable impact on the course of 20th-century Western music, Nadia Boulanger. Asserting in the foreword that his study is not a biography, Spycket nevertheless offers a captivating outline of her life told through an examination of the people and events that shaped her story. Readers come to know Boulanger the musician, the teacher, the friend, and the woman through her portraits, the words of students and colleagues, and the words of the master herself. Scholars will regret the absence of notes documenting the location for many of the photographs and letters and also the lack of text divisions (the book is one long chapter). However, Spycket's vivid observations, coupled with the reproductions of primary source material, make this a highly readable book and an important addition to the existing writings on Boulanger: biographies by L'eonie Rosenstiehl (Nadia Boulanger: A Life in Music, CH, Oct'82) and Alan Kendall (The Tender Tyrant, CH Nov'77), and the tribute by Don Campbell (Master Teacher, CH, Dec'84). Highly recommended for public and academic libraries. L. Whitesitt; Queens College, North Carolina