In January of 1918 a young woman, who had suffered chronic illnesses and was to die only a couple of months afterwards, dictated to her sister a setting of the text Pie Jesu for singer, strings, harp and organ. Her name was Marie-Juliette Olga Boulanger, known as ‘Lili’ and this was her last piece. Her sister and amanuensis, Nadia Boulanger, is understood to have believed her little sister to be the superior composer and this may have been why Nadia went on to teach and mentor composers more than she composed herself.

The scoring alone, and even more so the contour of the opening line, recall the setting of the same text within the context of a Requiem Mass by Gabriel Fauré, The text is taken from the traditional requiem, more specifically it is the final couplet of the sequence hymn of the Mass for the Dead – that is, the Dies Irae or ‘day of wrath’. The sequence as a whole covers a transition from the fear of the day of the Lord through to the assurance of the faithful that the dutiful (pious) Jesus can and will give rest. That Fauré did not set most of the sequence must be assumed to have been a statement; Boulanger in this instance did not even set the rest of the Mass, but only the couplet taken as a text in itself.

Musically, however, Boulanger’s setting does mirror the trajectory of the sequence by moving from rich chromaticism, especially in the organ part – the voice is more-or-less Dorian mode throughout – to a diatonicism which suggests both purity and radiance, and has been dubbed ‘the essence of affirmation’.

Theologically, this affirmation is clearly an expression of faithfulness, but is there a question-mark to raise over the treatment of the Pie Jesu text without the rest of the sequence? And indeed, of the function that a liturgical text might have when removed from that context?

Does the fact that the composer was dying add a dimension to the choice and setting of this text? In a sense, probably not, given that we’re all dying, sooner or later – a cheerful though, I know, but one that seems to be at the root of much religious sentiment. It is tempting, in fact, to draw a distinction between sentiment and theology – to suggest that the intellectual work of discourse around the traditions of belief is somehow different to the nexus of feelings that we all have; that in turn might even imply a hierarchy in which the intellect is more important than merely affective aspects. I am not sure that such a distinction is defensible in terms of the unity of human nature, itself understood theologically.

It is to be hoped, however, that each of us might approach death with something of the acceptance and assurance that Lili Boulanger appears to have had; that we might pray dutiful Jesus to give her, and us, entrance into divine rest.