French Canada As an Inspiration to Canadian Composers
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
French Canada as an Inspiration to Canadian Composers By Diane E. Peters Wilfrid Laurier University Library The music of Canada, with the exception of Franqois-Xavier Garneau' S Histoire du indigenous native and Inuit music, is unlike Canada (l 845-48), which appeared in reaction that of many other countries, in that it did not to Lord Durham's Report on the Affairs of reach its current state as a result of British North America, written in 1839. development from primitive origins. Durham had stated: Canada's contemporary music has grown from roots transplanted from various mature There can hardly be conceived a nations, each with its own social and religious nationality more destitute of all that traditions, and introduced to diverse regions of can invigorate and elevate a people the country over a period of more than 300 than that which is exhibited by the years. As a result, it is difficult to speak of a descendants of the French in Lower distinctly Canadian musical style. Canada, owing to their retaining their peculiar language and manners. They However, national or regional are a peo le with no history and no characteristics have made themselves evident literature.P in music in a number of ways: through adoption of folkloric content, through Durham further recommended a policy for association with literary or artistic works by gradual assimilation of the French Canadians native authors or artists, through allusions to by the British, similar to that which had taken historical events, or through musical evocation place in Louisiana. Garneau, by resurrecting of visual elements such as geographic the past, not only revealed to French Canada features. The aim of this study is to provide a the facts of her secular history, but also the brief overview of the ways in which French essential traits of her national character. Canada has served as an inspiration to Canadian composers. The most immediate results of Garneau's influence were the poems of Octave Cremazie, The French Canadian Folk Heritage the legends and literary criticism of 1'AbbC Casgrain, and the first Canadian novel of merit, Les Anciens Canadiens (1863), by Folk music, the predominant form of Philippe Aubert de GaspC. A further impetus music in Canada to the end of the eighteenth to the cause of nostalgic patriotism was the century, was gradually supplanted by arrival of the ship Capricieuse from France in European musical tastes over the course of the 1855, marking the re-establishment of French nineteenth century, especially in urban centres, Canadian ties with her mother country, broken as communications became more rapid. since the days of the British conquest. By However, the rise of a music-conscious 1860, the trend towards the creation of a middle class did not mark the end of folk literature based on the memory of past glories traditions. The mid-nineteenth century and the virtues of the race manifested itself in witnessed a revival of interest in the the works of the Patriotic School of Quebec, traditional French Canadian folklore, as part which included such figures as Louis of a general nationalistic trend. The first Frechette and William Chapman. literary manifestation of this movement was Musically, the patriotic movement On the whole, however, composers in the produced patriotic songs and a revival of late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries interest in their folk heritage among the made few attempts to find inspiration in their educated middle classes. This resulted in the folk heritage. At best, the Canadian publication of anumber of chansonniers, most environment was reflected in titles, song texts, without printed music. However, these were or opera libretti. Most composers in the pre- later proved to contain few true folk songs. World War I era undertook their studies The first scholarly consideration of folk songs abroad, and having been trained in European was undertaken by Hubert La Rue (1833-91) methods, showed disdain for the simple folk and Ernest Gagnon (1834-1915), both of music of their homeland. As Gordon Smith whom had studied in France and had come points out in his article on Ernest Gagnon's under the influence of European nationalistic attempts to promote Canadian musical musical movements. La Rue's studies, nationalism, "with few exceptions, other published in Le Foyer canadien in 1863 and musicians in French Canada were more 1865 under the title, "Les chansons populaires preoccupied with establishingtheir reputations et historiques du Canada," focused on based on writing in musical styles derived comparisons between French and Canadian from European traditi~n."~Even in the field versions of the same songs, and are of literary of folk music research little further study was and political rather than musical interest. undertaken. Musicians of the period assumed that Gagnon's collection had exhausted the More influential was Gagnon's Chansons supply of authentic French folk songs, and populaires du Canada, published in Quebec that the encroachments of modem society had City in 1865, a collection which included extinguished the last vestiges of local words and melodies of over 100 songs, with traditions. commentaries and analytical remarks on the musical structure. Gagnon's interest in It was not until the second decade of the folklore also inspired him to harmonize a twentieth century that this assumption was number of French Canadian songs and disproved. In 1910, Edward Sapir began Christmas carols. Similar arrangements were systematic research on native Indian folk made by composers such as Achille Fortier, music for the newly-created Anthropological Amedee Tremblay, Antoine Dessane, Oscar Division of the National Museum of Canada Martel, Alexis Contant, Paul Gilson, and Jules in Ottawa and, in 1911, Marius Barbeau, Hone, some of whom also arranged folk songs together with a team of other researchers, took into rhapsodies or medleys. One of the most over the task of expanding the collection. notable of the latter was Joseph Vezina's Barbeau's study of native music led him to Mosazque sur des airs populaires canadiens further research on French Canadian (1880), famous chiefly because its first traditional music. In May 19 16, armed with a performance was coupled with the first of phonograph, a supply of blank wax records, Calixa Lavallee's 0 Canada. LavallCe was and notebooks, he set out to interview many also responsible for one of the few extended of the remaining folk singers of French compositions using folk material composed in Canada. The result was a collection of two the late nineteenth century. On June 11,1870, hundred folktales and nearly six hundred the official reception of the new Governor- songs. The search continued in subsequent General, the Marquis of Lorne, took place in years, and collaborators such as E-Z. Quebec City. The cantata of welcome which Massicotte, Adelard Lambert, and Fraqois Lavallee had been commissioned to write for Brassard joined in. Barbeau and Massicotte the occasion was climaxed by a simultaneous published a new collection of folk tunes in rendition of "God Save the Queen," "Vive la 1919, and an English language version, Folk canadienne" and "Cornin' Through the Rye," Songs of French Canada, with translations by a combination symbolizing the friendship Edward Sapir, was published by Yale between the French and British elements in University Press in 1925 and widely Canada. circulated. After 1920, the performance of French you will continue to encourage Canadian folk music was promoted by Canadian composers to seek out these Montreal baritone Charles Marchand and, sources in their musical works.5 later, by two male quartets which he founded, Le Carillon canadien (1922) and The Bytown While Gagnon's efforts to encourage a Troubadours (l 927). Principal arrangers of the style of folk-based musical nationalism had music for these groups were Pierre Gautier met with only limited success, the re- and Oscar O'Brien. Public interest in discovery of folk song in the 1910s to 1930s, Canadian folk songs was also aroused after and its promotion by such men as Barbeau, May 1927, when Barbeau and John Murray Marchand, and Gibbon, led to the production Gibbon, chief publicity agent for the Canadian of numerous harmonizations, arrangements Pacific Railway, presented the first of what and concert settings by Canadian composers became a series of Festivals of Folk Songs and such as Leo-Pol Morin, Leo Smith, Alfied Handicrafts, organized under the joint Whitehead, Hector Gratton, Sir Ernest auspices of the CPR and the National Macmillan, Alfred Laliberte, and Healey Museum. In Barbeau's words: Willan. During the same period, renewed pride in the national heritage had its Recitals and folksong and handicraft counterpart in literary movements; French festivals marked the revival of folklore Canadian research was carried out in all in the region until, after 1940, the aspects of national history and literature, and universities in French Canada became poetry and novels of rural life came back into interested. Scholars and students vogue. awakened to a new humanism based on the traditions of the pe~ple.~ However, in the 1940s and post-war years, many authors and musicians again began to In 1944, Luc Lacourcikre founded the reject such endeavours in favour of a more Archives de Folklore at Laval University, a international, progressive style, furthered by centre which has gained an international advances in the technology of communication. reputation. Extensive research on French- Nevertheless, folklore influences continued to Canadian music in northern Ontario has been be evident in a variety of works, including carried out since the late 1940s, and is many by composers of non-Quebec origin. currently centred at the Centre hco-ontarien Canada's folk heritage proved of particular de folklore in S~dbury.~Acadian music has interest in the years surrounding Canada's been a focus of studies at the Centre d'etudes centennial in 1967.