The Boulanger Sisters choral music

This BBC Singers concert offers a rare opportunity to compare the musical voices of two sisters – one a Prix de Rome-winning composer, the other best known today as a pedagogue, teacher to Philip Glass, Aaron Copland and Elliott Carter, among others.

Lili’s expansive gestures and bold harmonic palette – all the more striking when you consider that they are the product of a composer still in her 20s – are showcased in the blazing Hymn au soleil and the delicate sensuality of Les Sirenes, while Nadia’s more contained musical language is at its best in miniature Maeterlinck-setting Cantique and immaculate song-cycle Les heures claires.