Descended from a long line of musicians, Nadia Boulanger (1887–1979) was the personification of music in the eyes of her contemporaries; but her work as a composer was for a long time overshadowed by her gifts as a virtuoso at the piano and organ, her skill as a pioneering conductor and choir director and, above all, her incredible charisma as a teacher.

Among Boulanger’s most frequently performed works are her Trois Pièces for cello and piano, a short cycle in which expressiveness, tendernes...