Pièce sur des airs populaires flamands

Nadia Boulanger began studying the organ at the age of nine. She was taught by Louis Vierne and Alexandre Guilmant, and from the age of fifteen she performed in concert on the instrument. Yet although she sometimes turned to the organ in transcriptions of her own works or Lili Boulanger’s, she wrote little for it. This Pièce sur des airs populaires flamands is a sequence of six sections, each devoted to a different tune: the first, “rhythmic, heavy, not too fast,” on the Grand Orgue, in cut time, in E minor; the second, “A little faster,” on the Positif, in duple meter, in A Aeolian; the third, “rather slow,” on the pedals, very soft, in D Dorian; the fourth, “rather fast,” with a lovely Cor de nuit stop, in duple meter, in D Aeolian; the fifth, “Not fast,” on the Grand Orgue, in triple meter, in G major; and finally the sixth, “Fast,” in compound duple meter, like a joyful round dance, still in G major. A brief accelerando leads to the peroration, fortissimo. To offset the extreme simplicity of the themes, all drawn from a collection of traditional songs, Nadia Boulanger provides finely wrought accompaniments that change with each section. At times, as in the last two sections, she does not shy away from very simple tonal harmonies. Certain particularly significant stylistic departures should be noted, however: between tunes Nos. 1 and 2, for example, enigmatic chords appear in the bass, one of which carries over into the start of the following tune to create a mysterious crossfade. Later, in tune No. 3, the composer introduces chromatic lines in the inner voices for expressive effect. At the close, the juxtaposition of folk-inspired harmonic language and color chords devoid of tonal function creates an element of surprise.

© Ricordi 1918

© Anthony Girard