Tag Archives: Marius Barbeau

The Singing Voyageurs

31 Saturday Mar 2018

Posted by in Art, Canadian History, Voyageurs

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Expedition Doubling Cape Barrow, July 25, 1821, by Sir George Back

Expedition Doubling Cape Barrow by Sir George Back, 25 July 1821, (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

More on the voyageur’s personality

The explorers left testimonials about the voyageur’s personality. According to Sir John Franklin, they were “creatures of the moment.” Sir George Simpson writes that they loved to eat and that, if a piece of equipment was good, they said that it came from France or “la vieille France de Londres,” London’s old France, and were “witty.” [i]

Sir George Back (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As for the explorers, they knew the name of every single one of their voyageurs. Most of these explorers came from Scotland. Obviously the Scots and the voyageurs got along very well. By the way, the gentleman who lost so many of his voyageurs was Admiral Sir George Back, FRS [Fellow of the Royal Society] (6 November 1796 – 23 June 1878). I have therefore edited my last post accordingly and, in doing so, I discovered that Sir George Back was an excellent artist.

When they were working for explorers, the voyageurs may have transported pelts. However, when employed by explorers such as Simon Fraser and Sir Alexander MacKenzie, they did not. They were simply finding their way, dangerously, to the Pacific. At that time, they also worked for travellers who were gathering information on Canada.

HMS Terror Thrown up by Ice by Sir George Back

The Singing Voyageur

The voyageurs did sing. We know for certain that they sang mostly old French songs and that their favourite song was “À la claire fontaine.” During the ten years he was in the employ of the Hudson’s Bay Company (1819-1829), Edward Ermatinger (1797-1876) collected eleven voyageur songs. They are traditional folksongs.

As for songs composed by the voyageurs, we know of three:

  • Épouser le voyage (To Wed the Voyage),
  • Les Bois-Brûlés (The Brullis), (Pierre Falcon),
  • Le Six mai de l’année dernière (Last Year on the Sixth of May).

The Bois-Brûlés were Dakota Amerindians.  As for the Sixth of May, that was the date on which the voyageurs left for “les pays d’en-haut,”  the north or, literally, the countries above.

These were published in the Beaver, a Canadian journal, by Marius Barbeau, the “founder of Canadian anthropology.” There can be no doubt that these songs are authentic voyageur songs.

Moreover, Grace Lee Nute lists voyageur songs. For the most part, the songs she discusses are well-known traditional folksongs. There are two exceptions:

  • C’est dans la ville de Bytown [Ottawa] (It’s in the town of Ottawa)
  • Parmi les voyageurs (Among the Voyageurs)

Parmi les voyageurs is unquestionably a voyageur song. However, loggers also left from Ottawa. They too had to find a living and left for the winter to work as lumberjacks.  As a result, C’est dans la ville de Bytown could be a forestier song or both a voyageur and forestier song. Forestiers worked in the lumber industry. They were lumberjacks or river drivers, riding the wood down riverways.

Sadly, W. F. Wentzel’s collection of voyageur songs has been lost. W. F. Wentzel, a  Norwegian trader of the far North West, was also a fine musician. He therefore transcribed voyageur songs that could have been an extremely valuable source to later generations of collectors and ethnologists.

Let us read Grace Lee Nute:

“It is a great pity nevertheless, that Wentzel’s large collection of these songs has not survived. His musical gifts added to his unusual command of languages would surely have made the collection invaluable. Moreover, he collected the songs of the voyageurs, and “mentions the indecorous quality of some of their [the voyageurs’] songs.” [ii]

Also lost are the songs of Pierre Falcon, except Les Bois Brûlés, an account of the Battle of Seven Oaks. Falcon wrote canoe songs that have probably been destroyed due to their ‘smutty’ character. Métis called themselves Bois Brûlés. They were not as dark as Amerindians.

Fortunately, we still have the eleven songs that Edward Ermatinger collected.

____________________

[i] Quoted by Nute in The Voyageur (St. Paul, Minnesota: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1987 [1931]), pp. 244 and 255.

[ii] “Mr W. F. Wentzel, Letters to the Hon. Roderic McKenzie, 1807-1824,” in Masson, Les Bourgeois, 1:71. Quoted in Nute’s The Voyageur, p. 155.

I am including, below, Blanche comme la neige, a folksong. Sir Ernest MacMillan composed a choral setting of this song. I do not have Sir Ernest’s setting, but we have the song. Blanche comme la neige is featured as a Christmas song, but it could be a song about winter and purity. It tells the story of a young woman who feigned death not to be raped. She is placed in a coffin and discovered, three days later, by her father. She tells him she has preserved her virginity: “pour mon honneur garder,” (to keep my honour).

One of the McGarrigle sisters died in 2010. It saddens me to know that they are now forever separated. Besides, it is difficult to find good renditions of folksongs.  I do not know the origin of Ce matin.

Portage

expedition_doubling_cape_barrow_july_25_18212

© Micheline Walker
18 January 2012
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À la claire fontaine

22 Sunday Jan 2012

Posted by in Canada, Music

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Barn on the York River, A. F. Casson*

 
*A. F. Casson, Group of Seven [i]
 
 
À la claire fontaine
 
À la claire fontaine,
M’en allant promener,
J’ai trouvé l’eau si belle,
Que je m’y suis baigné.
 
Refrain
Lui y a longtemps que je t’aime,
Jamais je ne t’oublierai.
 
Sous les feuilles d’un chêne,
Je me suis fait sécher,
Sur la plus haute branche,
Le rossignol chantait.
Refrain
 
Sur la plus haute branche,
Le rossignol chantait,
Chante, rossignol, chante,
Toi qui as le cœur gai.
Refrain
 
Chante, rossignol, chante,
Toi qui as le cœur gai,
Tu as le cœur à rire,
Moi, je l’ai à pleurer.
Refrain
 
Tu as le cœur à rire,
Moi, je l’ai à pleurer,
J’ai perdu ma maîtresse,
Sans l’avoir mérité. 
Refrain
 
J’ai perdu ma maîtresse,
Sans l’avoir mérité,
Pour un bouquet de roses,
Que je lui refusai.
Refrain
 
 
Je voudrais que la rose
Fût encore au rosier,
Et que le rosier même
À la mer fût jeté.
Refrain
 

Marius Barbeau*

* Marius Barbeau
 

This song, a ballad, is about a young man who walks by a clear fountain. The water (eau[f]) is so beautiful that he bathes (se baigner) in it. He lets himself dry (sécher: dry up) under the leaves (feuilles[fp]) of an oak-tree (chêne[m]). On the highest (la plus haute) branch, a nightingale (un rossignol [m]) sings. He tells the nightingale to sing (chanter) because he has a happy heart (tu as le cœur gai). You feel like laughing (rire), but I feel like crying (pleurer). I lost my lady friend (ma maîtresse) without deserving to (sans l’avoir mérité). Because I refused (Je lui ai refusai) [to give] her a bouquet of roses (la rose[f]).

f: feminine, m: masculin, p: plural

* * *

(please click on title to hear music)
 
Folklore: À la claire fontaine, Université de Moncton, New Brunswick, Male Choir.[ii]

_________________________

[i] http://www.artcountrycanada.com/group-of-seven-casson.htm

[ii] Theodore C. Blegen, Songs of the Voyageurs (St. Paul, Minnesota: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1998 [1966]).

Songs of Voyageur: Conrad Laforte

21 Saturday Jan 2012

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Frood Lake, by A. J. Casson*

* A. J. Casson, Group of Seven

  1.  Trois beaux canards
  2.  La Belle Françoise
  3.  Le Prisonnier de Nantes
  4.  Le Déserteur pendu
  5.  La Mariée battue
  6.  Le Bal chez Boulé
  7.  Belle Rose
  8. À la claire fontaine
  9. La Filleaux oranges
  10. La Pomme
  11. La Filleau cresson
  12. Par derrière chez ma tante
  13. La Chasse au perdreau
  14. L’Embarquement de Cécilia
  15. Les Moutons égarés
  16. Le Passage du bois
  17. La Fille qui se noie
  18. La Robe trop courte par derrière
  19. La Fille bonne à marie
  20. Vive la Canadienne
  21. Le Pommier doux
  22. Voici le printemps
  23. Mon père a fait bâtir maison
  24. Trois cavaliers fort bien montés
  25. Les Noces du pinson et de l’alouette
  26. La Perdriole
  27. Ah! si mon moine voulait danser
  28. Les Métamorphoses

(please click on title to hear music)

À la claire fontaine: Université de Moncton, New Brunswick, Male Choir [i]
 
_________________________
[i] Theodore C. Blegen, Songs of the Voyageurs (St. Paul. Minnesota: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1998 [1966]).
 
A. J. Casson
<http://www.artcountrycanada.com/group-of-seven-casson.htm>

Songs of Voyageur: Ermatinger, Nute & Barbeau

21 Saturday Jan 2012

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Canoes in a Fog, by Frances Anne Hopkins

There is a third list of song, compiled by Conrad Laforte, but I have not included it. If a song does not have a √, it is because it has already been mentioned.

Grace Lee Nute’s Collection

  1. À la claire fontaine√
  2. J’ai trop grand peur des loups√
  3. Voici le printemps√
  4. Frit à l’huile√
  5. La Belle Lisette√
  6. Une perdriole√
  7. J’ai cueilli la belle rose√
  8. Quand j’étais chez mon père√
  9. La Bergère muette√
  10. En roulant ma boule√
  11. Nous étions trop capitaines√
  12. Ah! si mon moine voulait danser !√
  13. La Belle Françoise√
  14. C’est dans la ville de Bytown√
  15. Parmi les voyageurs√
  16. Salut à mon pays√
  17. Le Retour du mari soldat√
  18. Petit Rocher (Cadieux’ story)√
  19. Quand un Chrétien se détermine à voyage√
  20.  Mon canot d’écorce√

 * * *

Marius Barbeau: The Ermatinger Collection: (1966[1954])

  1.  J’ai trop grand peur des loups
  2.  Nous avons déserté, (Nous étions trois capitaines)√
  3.  M’envenant à la fontaine, (Quand j’étais chez mon père)
  4. Mes Blancs Moutons garder, (Quand j’étais chez mon père)
  5. Mon père il m’a marié[e]√
  6. C’est l’oiseau et l’alouette√
  7. Un oranger il y a√
  8. Un Bon Cotillon blanc√
  9. La Chasse au perdreau√
  10. Mon père a fait bâtir maison√
  11. Le Rossignol y chante√

The Barbeau Collection

  1. Rose Blanche √
  2. Épouser le voyage√
  3. Les Bois-Brûlés√
  4. Le six mai de l’année dernière√

Literary Homeland Voyageur Songs 

  1. Le Canotier (Casgrain)
  2. La Complainte de Cadieux (Taché), or Petit Rocher

N.B. Petit Rocher and C’est dans la ville de Bytown could be coureurs de bois songs.  Note moreover that the same song may be given a different title.

 

In these fairylike boats…

21 Saturday Jan 2012

Posted by in Canada, Songs, Voyageurs

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Blue Heron, by Alfred Joseph Casson*

A. J. Casson was a member of the “Group of Seven”

Songs written by Voyageurs and “Literary Homeland” Songs

If we tally songs composed by the voyageurs, we have the following list:

  1. Les Roses blanches (White Roses),
  2. Épouser le voyage (To Wed the Voyage),
  3. Les Bois-Brûlés (The Brullis),
  4. Le Six Mai de l’année dernière (Last year on the Sixth of May),
  5. C’est dans la ville de Bytown (It’s in the Town of Ottawa),
  6. Parmi les voyageurs (Among the Voyageurs),
  7. Petit Rocher (also known as La Complainte de Cadieux or Cadieux’s Lament),
  8. Mon Canot d’Écorce or Le Canotier (My Birchbark Canoe or The Canoeman).

Included are Les Roses blanches, Petit Rocher or Cadieux’s Lament, and C’est dans la ville de Bytown. One of these songs, Petit Rocher, could be a forestier song. When dealing with the songs of the voyageurs, too strict a categorization seems injudicious. For instance, we have sixty-five versions of Le Canotier. Consequently, Madeleine Béland suggests that the popularity of l’abbé Casgrain’s Canotier warrants its folklorisation: “Cette chanson, le Canotier, a obtenu la faveur du public à un point tel que l’on peut admettre sa folkorisation.” [i]  So, if we include Patrie littéraire or Literary Homeland songs, we reach a total of eight (8) voyageur songs.

La Complainte de Cadieux, or Cadieux’s Lament

As for Jean-Charles Taché’s Cadieux (Forestiers et Voyageurs, Chapter 15), Taché considers him a voyageur.  As the story goes, Cadieux is a French-Canadian voyageur of the 18th century who lived in the Ottawa River region. When his cabin was attacked by Indians, he sent his family down the rapids in his canoe and stayed behind to prevent pursuit. The Virgin Mary is supposed to have guided the canoe through the rapids, which were generally portaged. Pursued by the Indians through the forest, Cadieux gradually weakened; he dug his own grave, erected a cross above it and composed a ballad about his misfortune, which he wrote in blood on birch bark; it was found by those who came to look for him.” [ii]

However, Barbeau dismisses Cadieux or Cayeux, as a voyageur. He considers him a coureur de bois whose story is not a legend but a true story. [iii]  Given that French-speaking Canadians have often associated forestiers and voyageurs, both of whom travelled to the “pays d’en-haut,” (the north, or the countries above), it may be best in this case to leave a little room for interpretation. Taché’s novel, published in 1863, is entitled Forestiers et Voyageurs, which suggests he perceived kinship between the two groups. In Forestiers et Voyageurs, the main character, le père Michel, is a voyageur.

Folklore

In his article on the Ermatinger songs, Marius Barbeau quotes a passage from R. M. Ballantyne’s (24 April 1825 – 8 February 1894) Hudson Bay (1843). Ballantyne was a Scottish juvenile fiction writer who praises not so much the voyageurs’ rendition of À la claire fontaine and Les Roses blanches as the feelings they evoke. These feelings border on synesthésie, a combination of sensory stimulation (hearing, seeing, etc. at the same time):

In these fairylike boats (birch bark North canoes gaudily painted on the boys and stern), we swept swiftly (from Norway House) over Playgreen Lake, the bright vermilion paddles gleaming in the sunshine and woods echoing to the lively tune of “À la claire fontaine” sung by the two crews in full chorus.  While yet in the distance the beautifully simple and lively yet plaintive song, so well suited to the surrounding scenery and yet so different from any other air, breaks sweetly on the ear; and one reflects with kind of melancholy, how far the singers are from their native land (Lower Canada), and many weary days of danger and will pass before they can rest once more in their Canadian homes.  How strangely too upon their nearer approach is this feeling changed for one of exultation, as the deep and manly voices swell in chorus over the placid waters.  In the canoe, bounding merrily up the river, while the echoing woods and dells responded to the lively air of “Rose Blanche” sung by the men as we swept round point after point and curve after curve of the noble river.  I have seen four canoes sweep round a promontory suddenly and burst upon my view, while at the same moment the wild romantic song of the Voyageurs as they plied their brisk paddles struck upon my ear; and I have felt thrilling enthusiasm on witnessing such a scene.  With hearts joyful at the termination of their trials and privations, sung, with all the force of three hundred manly voices, on of their lively airs, which rising and falling in the distance as it was borne, first lightly on the breeze, and then more steadily as they approached, swelled out in the rich tunes of many a mellow voice, and burst at last into a long enthusiastic shout of joy.  Away we went then, over the clear lake, sing “Rose Blanche” vociferously. [iv]

As you may have noted, in the above excerpt, Barbeau mentions Rose Blanche, a  song which Frances Anne Hopkins also heard. I still doubt that Rose blanche was composed by voyageurs. As Wentzel stated, the voyageur’s songs could be “smutty.”  So it is possible that Rose blanche was simply a favorite, as was À la claire fontaine.

Grace Lee Nute wonders why À la claire fontaine was a “favorite.”  I have reflected that the melody is lovely and that few songs could express the degree to which these men remembered?  They remembered France.  They remembered their home in Bas-Canada. They remembered the woman they loved: I have loved you for a long time / Never will I forget you. (Il y a longtemps que je t’aime / Jamais je ne t’oublierai.)

—ooo—

We’ve come to the end of this topic. I may list the songs. That would be a blog without comments. I wish we had Wentzel’s collection and the songs of the Falcon. They are lost. But we know that voyageurs sang while facing great dangers.

For more information on the voyageurs, I would suggest you read Carolyn Podruchny‘s Making the Voyageur World: Travelers and Traders in the North American Fur Trade. I bought it a few years ago and would classify it as a “good read.”

____________________
[i] Madeleine Béland, avec la collaboration de Lorraine Carrier-Aubin, Chansons de voyageurs, coureurs de bois et forestiers (Québec : Les Presses de l’Université Laval, 1982.), p. 37.

[ii] Nancy Schmitz, “Jean Cadieux,”
http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/en/article/jean-cadieux/

[iii] Marius Barbeau, “La Complainte de Cadieux, coureur de bois (ca. 1709),” Journal of American Folklore, (Vol. 67, 1966 [1954], pp.163-183), p. 182.

[iv] Marius Barbeau, “The Ermatinger Collection of Voyageur Songs (ca. 1830),” The Journal of American Folklore (New York: Kraus Reprint Corporation, Vol. 67, 1966 [1954], pp. 147-161.), p. 150.


Canada Geese, by AJ Casson

Canadian Geese, by A. J. Casson (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

© Micheline Walker
21 January 2012
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The Voyageur Mythified

20 Friday Jan 2012

Posted by in Canadian History, Folksongs, Voyageurs

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The Canoe, by Tom Tomson

Tom Tomson was a member of the Group of Seven, Canadian artists.

The Voyageur’s Repertoire

The voyageurs’ repertoire consisted mainly of songs inherited from the trouvères, troubadours and the folklore of France. Different versions of this songs were composed, but they can nevertheless be traced back to the motherland.

As I noted in my last post, The Singing Voyageur, we know for certain that three songs were genuine voyageur songs.

  • Épouser le voyage (To Wed the Voyage),
  • Les Bois-Brûlés (The Brullis),
  • Le Six Mai de l’année dernière (Last year on the Sixth of May).

To this list, Barbeau [i] adds a song entitled Les Roses blanches (The White Roses). However, because there is a French song, not a folksong, entitled Les Roses blanches, it was somewhat difficult for me to call it a voyageur’s song. But we know that the voyageurs sang Roses blanches. In fact, I few days ago, I heard a folkloric Roses blanches on the radio. The song I heard could be the Roses blanches Marius Barbeau deems a genuine voyageur song.

As well, in the Beaver, Anne Frances Hopkins, an accomplished artist and the wife of an employee of the Hudson’s Bay Company, Edward Hopkins, writes that “[m]any old chansons from Normandy—‘À la claire fontaine,’ ‘Rose blanche’—were popular canoe song.” [ii] Frances Anne Hopkins kept a record of a few songs, all of which are French folksongs, not voyageur songs. She travelled west in the ‘canot du gouverneur,’ when she journeyed west. She is a mostly reliable source. The eleven songs collected by Edward Ermatinger are folksongs brought to Nouvelle-France. [iii]

I also reread a paper I wrote on the voyageurs and I listed Rose blanche. To avoid confusion, I will add it to the three songs I listed yesterday.

Marius Barbeau’s authentic voyageur songs are:

  • Les Roses blanches (White Roses),
  • Épouser le voyage (To Wed the Voyage),
  • Les Bois-Brûlés (The Brullis),
  • Le Six Mai de l’année dernière (Last year on the Sixth of May).

We then have two songs discussed in Nute’s Voyageur, [iv] the first of wich could be a logger’s song or both a forestier and a voyageur song.

  • C’est dans la ville de Bytown (It’s in the Town of Ottawa)
  • Parmi les voyageurs (Among the Voyageurs)

We therefore know of six authentic voyageur songs, i.e. songs composed by voyageurs. If we do not include C’est dans la ville de Bytown (Ottawa) which could be a forestier song, the number goes down to six.

North West Company Coin

—ooo—

A Brief Look at Historical Events

In 1874, the Quebec Act made French-speaking Canadians into full fledged British subjects and Canada was named Quebec. Guy Carleton, 1st Lord Dorchester  (September 3, 1724 – November 10, 1808) was then Governor of Quebec. Later, in 1791, Canada was divided into the Upper Canada and the Lower Canada under the terms of the Constitutional Act. It was no longer Quebec. There were English-speaking Canadians in Lower-Canada, but the majority of citizens were French-speaking Canadians

However, in 1837-1838, both Canadas rebelled against England because the Crown was helping itself to money levied in the Canadas. There were reprisals in both Canadas and Britain asked John George Lambton, 1st Earl of Durham (1792-1840), the governor-in-chief of British North America, to investigate the matter, particularly as it presented itself in Bas-Canada. In his Report, Lord Durham proposed that the two Canadas be joined, but he also stated that French Canadians did not have a literature and that they also lacked a history. For Canadiens, this was an insult, and some have yet to recover.

—ooo—

La Patrie littéraire or The Literary Homeland

In her superb selection of voyageur songs, twenty songs notated (musical notation) and translated, Nute includes:

  • Petit Rocher (also known as La Complainte de Cadieux or Cadieux’s Lament, and
  • Mon Canot d’Écorce or Le Canotier (My Birchbark Canoe or The Canoeman).

It seems unlikely that these are voyageur songs. First, they were written in the 1860s when the voyageur had ceased to transport fur. Second, and more importantly, these two songs are part of the literature which, according to Lord Durham, French-speaking Canadians did not have. As soon as the Union-Act was passed (1841), French-speaking Canadians gave themselves the history and the literature which, according to Lord Durham, they did not possess. That period of French-Canadian literature is known as The Literary Homeland or La Patrie littéraire.

Antoine Gérin-Lajoie composed his lovely and famous Un Canadien errant or Un Acadien errant. We have heard this song, but I will nevertheless include it at the bottom of this blog. In theory, the melody is from the French-Canadian folk tune “J’ai fait une maîtresse.” I do not think this is the case. Moreover, French-speaking Canadians quickly endowed themselves with two literary schools, one in Montreal and the other, in Quebec city.

In  the wake of Lord Durham’s Report, François-Xavier Garneau [v] published his three-volume Histoire du Canada (1845-1848) and added a supplement, published in 1852. Canadiens, later called Québécois (1960) were also writing poetry and novels.

Le Canotier and La Complainte de Cadieux

Le Canotier was published in Casgrain’s Légendes canadiennes et Œuvres diverses (1861). L’abbé Henri-Raymond Casgrain [vi] (December 16, 1831 – February 11, 1904) was a prolific and excellent writer. Consequently, although some would like Le Canotier to be a folksong, it is a poem by l’abbé Casgrain.

However there are sixty-five (65) versions of Le Canotier or Mon canot d’écorce. Therefore, although l’abbé Casgrain’s wrote Le Canotier or Mon canot d’écorce poem, it was incorporated into the anamnesis, Plato’s theory, that followed the loss of the Canadiens’s Bas-Canada. The concept of anamnesis suggests remembrance and reincarnation. French-speaking Canadians started remembering and gave the voyageur mythic dimension.

The brothers Grimm collected folklore, thereby reaching into the past. As for Richard Wagner, he gave Germany a mythology and in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, he remembered Hans Sachs. He brought him back to life .

La Complainte de Cadieux, or Petit Rocher, it is a legend told by Joseph Charles Taché [vii] (December 24, 1820 – April 16, 1894) a nephew of Sir Étienne-Paschal Taché (5 September 1795 – 30 July 1865), in his Forestiers et voyageurs (1863). Cadieux’s Lament is a legend dating back to the seventeenth century. It had been passed down orally and was now entering a learned tradition. According to Marius Barbeau, it is not a voyageur song, but a forestier song.

As the legend goes, Cadieux “died in May 1709 after defending his family against the Iroquois at the Sept-Chutes portage on the Ottawa River. Cadieux diverted the Indians’ attention while his family, protected by the Virgin Mary, managed to navigate the rapids in a canoe. Prior to dying of exhaustion, he dug his own grave and lay in it.” [viii]

For Taché, [ix]

The mind of man can no more live on realism than his soul can live on the natural truths it perceives; [the mind] must venture into the unknown, [the soul] must find repose through faith in mysteries. Hence the need for our imagination to feed on magical notions. Herein lies the charm of legends and tales.

In short, the voyageur is now larger than life, but I am fascinated by the fact that he turned miserable circumstances into a source of pride and into pleasure. He had a job. He was un homme engagé, rather than unemployed. And he endeared himself to his employers. Besides, he was busy naming rivers, lakes, forts and he was taking explorers all the way to the Pacific Ocean.

 

Grey Day, by Tom Thomson

I have a recording of songs Voyageurs sang but I do not know how to incorporate it into a blog.

_________________________

[i] Marius Barbeau, “The Ermatinger Collection of Voyageur Songs (ca. 1830),” The Journal of American Folklore (New York:  Kraus Reprint Corporation, Vol. 67, 1966 [1954]), pp. 147-161. 

[ii] “Hopkins Book of Canoe Songs,” The Beaver, (Outfit 302.2, Autumn 1971), pp. 54-58.

[iii] Marius Barbeau, “The Ermatinger Collection of Voyageur Songs (ca. 1830),” The Journal of American Folklore (New York: Kraus Reprint Corporation, Vol. 67, 1966 [1954], pp. 147-161

[iv] Grace Lee Nute, The Voyageur (St. Paul, Minnesota: Minnesota Historical Society, 1987 [1931]).

[v] Pierre Savard, “François-Xavier Garneau” http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/francoisxavier-garneau

[vi] Henri-Raymond Casgrain                                         http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri-Raymond_Casgrain

[vii] “Joseph-Charles Taché”                                                                  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph-Charles_Tach%C3%A9

[viii] Hélène Plouffe, “Petit rocher de la haute montagne,” Canadian Encyclopedia http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/articles/emc/petit-rocher-de-la-haute-montagne

[ix] Jean-Guy Nadeau, “Jean-Charles Taché,” Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online. http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?BioId=40576.

The Singing Voyageurs

18 Wednesday Jan 2012

Posted by in Art, Canadian History, Voyageurs

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Expedition Doubling Cape Barrow, July 25, 1821, by Sir George Back

Expedition Doubling Cape Barrow, 25 July 1821, by Sir George Back (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

More on the voyageur’s personality

The explorers left testimonials about the voyageur’s personality. According to Sir John Franklin, they were “creatures of the moment.” Sir George Simpson writes that they loved to eat and that, if a piece of equipment was good, they said that it came from France or “la vieille France de Londres,” London’s old France, and were “witty.” [i]

Sir George Back (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

As for the explorers, they knew the name of every single one of their voyageurs. Most of these explorers came from Scotland. Obviously the Scots and the voyageurs got along very well. By the way, the gentleman who lost so many of his voyageurs was Admiral Sir George Back, FRS [Fellow of the Royal Society] (6 November 1796 – 23 June 1878). I have therefore edited my last post accordingly and, in doing so, I discovered that Sir George Back was an excellent artist.

When they were working for explorers, the voyageurs may have transported pelts. However, when employed by explorers as Simon Fraser and Sir Alexander MacKenzie, they did not. They were simply and dangerously finding their way to the Pacific.  At that time, they also worked for travellers who were gathering information on Canada.

HMS Terror Thrown up by Ice, by Sir George Back

The Singing Voyageur

The voyageurs did sing. We know for certain that they sang mostly old French songs and that their favourite song was “À la claire fontaine.” During the ten years he was in the employ of the Hudson’s Bay Company (1819-1829), Edward Ermatinger (1797-1876) collected eleven voyageur songs. They are traditional folksongs.

As for songs composed by the voyageurs, we know of three:

  • Épouser le voyage (To Wed the Voyage),
  • Les Bois-Brûlés (The Brullis),
  • Le Six mai de l’année dernière (Last Year on the Sixth of May).

The Bois-Brûlés were Dakota Amerindians.  As for the Sixth of May, that was the date on which the voyageurs left for “les pays d’en-haut,”  the north or, literally, the countries above.

These were published in the Beaver, a Canadian journal, by Marius Barbeau, the “founder of Canadian anthropology.” There can be no doubt that these songs are authentic voyageur songs.

Moreover, Grace Lee Nute lists voyageur songs. For the most part, the songs she discusses are well-known traditional folksongs. There are two exceptions:

  • C’est dans la ville de Bytown [Ottawa] (It’s in the town of Ottawa)
  • Parmi les voyageurs (Among the Voyageurs)

Parmi les voyageurs is unquestionably a voyageur song. However, loggers also left from Ottawa. They too had to find a living and left for the winter to work as lumberjacks.  As a result, C’est dans la ville de Bytown could be a forestier song or both a voyageur and forestier song.

Sadly, W. F. Wentzel’s collection of voyageur songs has been lost. W. F. Wentzel, a Norwegian trader of the far North West, was also a fine musician. He therefore transcribed voyageur songs that could have been an extremely valuable source to later generations of collectors and ethnologists.

Let us read Grace Lee Nute:

“It is a great pity nevertheless, that Wentzel’s large collection of these songs has not survived. His musical gifts added to his unusual command of languages would surely have made the collection invaluable. Moreover, he collected the songs of the voyageurs, and “mentions the indecorous quality of some of their [the voyageurs’] songs.” [ii]

Also lost are the songs of Pierre Falcon, a Métis who wrote canoe songs that have probably been destroyed due to their ‘smutty’ character.

Fortunately, we still have the eleven songs that Edward Ermatinger collected.

____________________

[i] Quoted by Nute in The Voyageur (St. Paul, Minnesota: Minnesota Historical Society Press, 1987 [1931]), p 244 and p. 255.

[ii] “Mr W. F. Wentzel, Letters to the Hon. Roderic McKenzie, 1807-1824,” in Masson, Les Bourgeois, 1:71. Quoted in Nute’s The Voyageur, p. 155.

I am including, below, Blanche comme la neige, a folksong. Sir Ernest MacMillan composed a choral setting of this song. I do not have Sir Ernest’s setting, but we have the song. Blanche comme la neige is featured as a Christmas song, but it could be a song about winter and purity. It tells the story of a young woman who feigned death not to be raped. She is placed in a coffin and discovered, three days later, by her father. She tells him she has preserved her virginity: “pour mon honneur garder,” (to keep my honour).

One of the McGarrigle sisters died in 2010. It saddens me to know that they are now forever separated.  Besides, it is difficult to find good renditions of folksongs.  I do not know the origin of Ce matin.

Portage

(please click on title to hear the songs)

expedition_doubling_cape_barrow_july_25_18212

© Micheline Walker
18 January 2012
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Sir Ernest MacMillan: a Testimonial

09 Monday Jan 2012

Posted by in Music

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Sir Ernest MacMillan

Canadians love music and Canada has produced several fine composers and performers.

But, the person I wish to write about today is Sr Ernest MacMillan (CC [Canada Council], a companion of the Order of Canada; b. Mimico, Ontario 1893 – d. Toronto, 1973), whose contribution to the establishment of music in Canada is simply unparalleled.

Sir Ernest MacMillan’s Childhood House in Mimico

Sir Ernest was a child prodigy who gave his first organ concert at the age of ten. He then accompanied his father to Edinburgh and, during his three-year stay in Scotland, Ernest studied at the University of Edinburgh under Friedrich Niecks and W. B. Ross, and took private organ lessons from Ross. Consequently, before his eighteenth birthday, he had earned his certificate as a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists (FRCO) and an extramural B Mus (Bachelor of Music) degree from Oxford University (1911). From 1911 to 1914, he studied modern history at the University of Toronto, but was awarded his Bachelor of Arts in absentia. He was detained in Germany.

Ruhleben: an unlikely detainee

Ernest MacMillan was a colourful individual and he led a colourful life. In the spring of 1914, he went to Paris where he began to study piano privately with Thérèse Chaigneau (1876-c. 1935). However, he travelled to the Bayreuth Wagner Festival, but did so at the worst possible moment. While he was in Bayreuth, Canada declared war against Germany and, as a result, young Ernest was detained, first and briefly, at Nuremberg and, later, in a civilian detention camp at Ruhleben, Germany, for the duration of the first World War.

Accomplishments at Ruhleben

Resilient as he was, Ernest MacMillan learned German and got involved in the musical and theatrical life of Ruhleben. He became an active member of both the Ruhleben Musical Society and the Ruhleben Drama Society. He conducted, transcribed the music of Cinderella (Tchaikovsky/ Prokoviev) from memory, with some help. He also honed his skills as an actor. However, his finest achievement as a detainee was his setting of Swinburne‘s ode England, which he submitted as part of the Requirements for his D Mus (Doctorate in Music) from Oxford University.

The Royal Toronto Conservatory

After the war, Ernest MacMillan returned to Toronto and started to teach piano and organ at the Canadian Academy of Music (CAM). On December 31st, 1919, he married Laura Elsie Keith, his fiancée since before the war.  In June 1924, the Canadian Academy of Music (CAM) amalgamated with the Toronto College of Music (TCM) and, in 1947, it became the Royal Toronto Conservatory (RTCM), then located at the corner of College Street and University Avenue. The Royal Toronto Conservatory would move to its present location in 1964.

However, Ernest MacMillan’s position was not affected by these changes. At first, he was a teacher, but would go on to become Canada’s most prominent musician. Allow me simply to list his better-known official functions.  He was:

But Ernest MacMillan, who was knighted in 1935, was also a composer, a performer, a lecturer, a writer, an adjudicator, an administrator, a statesman, the founder of the Royal Toronto Conservatory’s Opera Company and the co-founder of The Canadian Trio (1941-1943), of which he was a member as pianist, with Zara Nelsova (cellist) and Kathleen Parlow (violinist). Moreover, during his tenure as principal of the future Royal Toronto Conservatory, Sir Ernest travelled everywhere in Canada as examiner, spreading enthusiasm for music.

Sir Ernest and French-Canadian Folklore

Having reviewed Marius Barbeau’s and Edward Sapir’s Folksongs of French Canada, Sir Ernest MacMillan joined prominent Canadian anthropologist Marius Barbeau, (CC [The Canada Council], Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, recipient of the Order of Canada; b. Sainte-Marie, Québec, March 5, 1883 – d. Ottawa, February 27, 1969). Sir Ernest therefore participated in gathering the folk music of French-speaking Canadians. German-born American anthropologist-linguist Edward Sapir 1884–1939) and Marius Barbeau were Canada’s first anthropologists and worked together at the National Museum of Canada. For Ernest MacMillan, this collaboration was an important moment. He became a folklorist.

In all, Marius Barbeau collected some 9,000 songs and 5,000 melodies. Dr Barbeau, a Rhodes Scholar, had written his thesis on the “Totemic System of the North Western Indian Tribes of North American.” However, renowned German-American anthropologist Franz Boas, then of the American Folklore Society, convinced Barbeau to specialize in French-Canadian folklore.  Barbeau took Boas’s advice and, in 1918, he had become president of the AFS. For composers, exposure to folklore can prove extremely fruitful. The music of Dvořák attests to the creative influence of folk music.

The Composer

When he met Barbeau, Sir Ernest was already an accomplished composer. While a detainee in Nuremberg, he had composed a String Quart in C Minor. In Ruhleben, he set Swinburne‘s ode England, a choral work which earned him his D Mus (Doctorate in Music) at Oxford University. He had also composed a Te Deum and other pieces.

But his partnership with Barbeau would lead to further compositions. Sir Ernest drew inspiration from the music of French-Canada and composed:

  • “Notre Seigneur en pauvre” and “À Saint-Malo”
  • Six Bergerettes du Bas-Canada; and
  • a choral setting of the Canadian ballad “Blanche comme la neige” or “White as Snow.” 

“Notre Seigneur en pauvre” is rooted in the French-Canadian legend according to which the poor who knocks at one’s door is Jesus himself. As for “À Saint-Malo,” it is a song that could reflect the discovery of Canada. In 1534, Jacques Cartier had sailed from Saint-Malo, Brittany, and had claimed Canada for France. But “À Saint-Malo” is a folksong that had probably belonged to an oral tradition for centuries. Bergerettes are a fifteenth-century bucolic form.

“Notre Seigneur en pauvre” and “À Saint-Malo” were combined to constitute Two Sketches for Strings, performed by the Hart House [University of Toronto] String Quartet at the 1927 Folksong and Handicraft Festival, a Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR)Festival, which took place in Quebec City. The Six Bergerettes du Bas-Canada were performed the following year, at the 1928 CPR Festival.

Sir Ernest’s partnership with Dr Marius Barbeau was all the more enriching since Dr MacMillan took an interest in the music of French Canada. In French Canada, music had long an establishment, but Sir Ernest brought it under the wider umbrella of Canadian Music.

* * *

Would that Sir Ernest had composed more music, but he was otherwise occupied. The founding of the Canadian Music Council, established c. 1946 was his initiative. He became Chairman in 1947. The CMC received its federal charter in 1949. From 1947 to 1969, Sir Ernest also served CAPAC (Composers, Authors and Publishers Association of Canada Limited/Association des compositeurs, auteurs et éditeurs du Canada Ltée). Moreover, Sir Ernest got involved in the Jeunesses Musicales movement.

Ernest MacMillan was indeed an organizer. In this respect, I will quote a sentence from the Sir Ernest MacMillan entry in the Canadian Encyclopedia:

MacMillan was an educator, an administrator, and a developer of systems and policies rather than a teacher.

To the above, we could perhaps add “rather than a composer,” except that Sir Ernest had demonstrated he was an excellent composer. When I studied Music in Canada, members of the class lamented his not bequeathing more compositions since the music he had composed was delightful. It could be, however, that having been detained for four years, Sir Ernest had to work publicly. And there can be little doubt that Canada needed such a musician. Matters were perhaps just as they should.

* * *

But Sir Ernest did compose music and more of his compositions should be unearthed, including his many arrangements, his compilations, such as his Book of Songs, used in Canadian Schools in the 1930s and 1940s, music written for the teaching of music and the hymns he composed for The University [Toronto] Hymn Book (Toronto 1912). There is more to this story.

Coat of Arms of Canada

© Micheline Walker
9 January 2012
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