{"id":930,"date":"2008-08-23T02:54:07","date_gmt":"2008-08-23T06:54:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/s265039441.onlinehome.us\/philpaine\/?p=930"},"modified":"2018-08-12T22:54:59","modified_gmt":"2018-08-13T02:54:59","slug":"classical-composition-in-early-19th-century-canada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=930","title":{"rendered":"Classical Composition in Early 19th Century Canada"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><!-- @page { margin: 2cm } P { margin-bottom: 0.21cm } --><span style=\"color: #000000;\">When it comes to for\u00admal com\u00adpo\u00adsi\u00adtion in Cana\u00adda, before 1860, I know of noth\u00ading that was com\u00adposed out\u00adside of Qu\u00e9bec, the only part of the coun\u00adtry with any\u00adthing resem\u00adbling an urban cul\u00adture. There was, of course, plen\u00adty of folk fid\u00addling, folk singing, tav\u00adern bal\u00adlads, and hymn singing going on in Ontario, the West, and Atlantic Cana\u00adda, but only Mon\u00adtr\u00e9al and Qu\u00e9bec City could sup\u00adport pro\u00adfes\u00adsional com\u00adposers. Most of their work is unob\u00adtain\u00adable, but a sam\u00adpling has been put togeth\u00ader by l\u2019Ensemble du Nou\u00adveau Qu\u00e9bec under the title<em> Antholo\u00adgie de la musique his\u00adtorique du Qu\u00e9bec, vol.1 \u2015 l\u2019\u00e9poque de Julie Pap\u00adineau, 1795\u20131862<\/em>. As you might guess, it is pret\u00adty tame, provin\u00adcial stuff, polkas, mazurkas and art songs of mod\u00adest ambi\u00adtion. The most ambi\u00adtious piece seems to have been Joseph Quesnel\u2019s com\u00adic opera <em>Lucas et C\u00e9cile<\/em> (c. 1808), of which only the vocal parts sur\u00advive. The two excerpts on the album dis\u00adplay some <em>panache<\/em>, but they would have been old-fash\u00adioned in style at the time of their com\u00adpo\u00adsi\u00adtion. All the works, by Ques\u00adnel, Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Glack\u00ade\u00admeyer, Th\u00e9odore Molt, Charles Sabati\u00ader, Ernest Gagnon, C\u00e9lestin Lav\u00adigueur, and Antoine Dessane have the charm of small draw\u00ading-room com\u00adpo\u00adsi\u00adtions in a back\u00adwoods envi\u00adron\u00adment. They are most vig\u00ador\u00adous when they draw on folk mate\u00adr\u00adial and local themes. How\u00adever, the envi\u00adron\u00adment wasn\u2019t entire\u00adly unso\u00adphis\u00adti\u00adcated: Dessane made a set\u00adting of Alphonse Lamar\u00adtine, at the time an avant-guarde poet. Noth\u00ading on the album, how\u00adever, comes close to the impact of its best track: Antoine G\u00e9rin-Lajoie\u2019s \u201c<em>Un Cana\u00addien Errant<\/em>\u201d. Strict\u00adly speak\u00ading, G\u00e9rin-Lajoie mere\u00adly wrote evoca\u00adtive (and, at the time, polit\u00adi\u00adcally charged) lyrics for a tra\u00addi\u00adtional folk song, but these lyrics are so per\u00adfect \u2015 an exiled patri\u00adot, after the Rebel\u00adlion of 1837, wan\u00adders the world, shed\u00adding tears of home\u00adsick\u00adness \u2015 that ear\u00adli\u00ader folk ver\u00adsions were entire\u00adly sup\u00adplant\u00aded.&nbsp;The song has been per\u00adformed by an aston\u00adish\u00ading vari\u00adety of artists, rang\u00ading from Nana Mousk\u00adouri to Paul Robe\u00adson, as well as vir\u00adtu\u00adal\u00adly every Cana\u00addi\u00adan folksinger.<br>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: #000000;\"><span style=\"font-size: x-small;\"><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When it comes to for\u00admal com\u00adpo\u00adsi\u00adtion in Cana\u00adda, before 1860, I know of noth\u00ading that was com\u00adposed out\u00adside of Qu\u00e9bec, the only part of the coun\u00adtry with any\u00adthing resem\u00adbling an urban cul\u00adture. There was, of course, plen\u00adty of folk fiddling,&nbsp;\u2026<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=930\">Read more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[947,22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-930","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-c-listening","category-cs-listening-2008"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/930","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=930"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/930\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8406,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/930\/revisions\/8406"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}