Quebec

(Fr. Québec).

City in Canada. It is the capital of Quebec province and the principal French-speaking city in Canada. It was founded in 1608; under French rule (1608–1763) the missionary communities played a leading part in the development of music teaching and musical life. Music was taught at these institutions, including the Collège des Récollets from 1620. According to the Relations des Jésuites of 1635, Father Paul Le Jeune (1591–1664) taught the rudiments of Gregorian chant and its notation to young Amerindian and French boys, and plainchant was a compulsory subject at the Séminaire de Québec in 1666. A legal document of 1657 mentions the existence of an organ in Quebec parish church; it was replaced by an instrument brought from France in 1663 by Monseigneur de Laval and inaugurated in 1664. The serpent was also used there. The Relations des Jésuites mention an organ in the Jesuit chapel in 1661. Among outstanding musicians were Martin Boutet (c1617–c1686), who settled in Quebec in 1645 and was maître de chapelle of the parish church, and two of his pupils: Louis Jolliet (1645–1700), an organist and the first Canadian known to have gone to Europe to complete his musical studies, and Charles-Amador Martin (1648–1711), thought to have written the oldest extant Canadian composition, the plainchant prosa Sacrae familiae.

In spite of bans imposed by the clergy, balls were held at the intendant's residence and dances given by the prominent citizens; in 1636 the Relations des Jésuites mention a fiddle being played at evening entertainments. According to Les Annales de l'Hôtel-Dieu of 1710, the intendant, Jacques Raudot, regularly held vocal and instrumental concerts. The first colonists brought with them French folksongs, of which there is an inventory at Laval University.

Canada and its dependencies were ceded to England by the Treaty of Paris in 1763. The Gazette de Québec, published from 1764, mentions many musical activities, including theatrical performances with music, assemblies for dancing and concerts. Public concerts began in 1765 and the Gentlemen's Subscription Concerts by 1770. Subscription concerts were the most usual kind from 1790 to 1794, the period of Prince Edward Augustus's visit to Quebec and the arrival of the band of the Royal Fusiliers of the 7th Regiment, celebrated by the first Canadian military marches, the March de Normandie and the Royal Fusiliers' Arrival at Quebec, 1791. Operas by Dibdin and Shield were given in the Quebec theatres. Concert programmes featured as many works by earlier composers (Arne, Avison, Corelli and Handel) as by modern ones (Devienne, Grétry, Pleyel, Gyrowetz, Mozart and Haydn). British military bands figured prominently during the late 18th century, playing not only for military and on official occasions but at assemblies, balls, theatrical performances and masonic ceremonies. The first professional musicians in Quebec, Frederick Glackemeyer (1759–1836) and Francis Vogeler (1746/7–1821), were of German origin and were in the army before turning to music teaching and dealing in musical instruments.

The 19th century saw the formation of the first local ensembles, often conducted by regimental musicians: the Société Harmonique de Québec (probably founded by Glackemeyer in 1819), the Military Band of the Quebec Artillery (1831), the first Canadian militia corps, the Musique des Elèves du Séminaire de Québec (1833–8), Charles Sauvageau's Quadrille Band (1833–49) and the Septett Club (1857–68) which was founded by the French organist and composer Antoine Dessane (1826–73). The Septuor Haydn, founded in 1871, merged in 1903 with the Société Symphonique de Québec, whose first director, Joseph Vézina (1849–1924), composed three opéras comiques. The Canadian national anthem O Canada! was composed by Calixa Lavallée (1842–91) and was first performed, under Vézina, on 24 June 1880.

On 26 June 1834 Stephen Codman organized a concert of sacred music with 174 performers in the Anglican cathedral. The popularity of the European choral repertory – masses, oratorios and operettas – led to the creation of the Union Musicale de Québec in 1866 and of the Société Musicale Ste-Cécile in 1869.

In 1800 the Graduel romain, the first musical work to be printed in Canada, was published. The Processional romain (1801) and the Vespéral romain (1802) were followed by many collections of songs and music theory treatises.

The first season of the Société Symphonique de Québec was inaugurated in September 1903 in the new hall of the Auditorium de Québec. Vézina conducted the orchestra until 1924. It merged in 1942 with the Cercle Philharmonique de Québec to become the Orchestre Symphonique de Québec. The orchestra, which was considerably expanded under Françoys Bernier (1927–93) during the 1960s, had a policy of commissioning new works and gave premières of music by several Quebec composers, including Roger Matton's Te Deum (1967). Other influential ensembles have been the Orchestre de Chambre de la Société Radio-Canada (originally Les Petits Concerts, renamed in 1964 and disbanded in 1988), recording up to 40 broadcasts a year, and the chamber orchestra Les Violons du Roy, founded in 1984 and conducted by Bernard Labadie (b 1963); it specializes in the Baroque and Classical repertory and since 1988 has performed in Belgium, Spain, Germany, Morocco and the USA.

Quebec had to wait some time for an opera company. The Théâtre Lyrique de Nouvelle-France was founded in 1961; it was renamed the Théâtre Lyrique du Québec in 1966 and was disbanded in 1970. The Société Lyrique d'Aubigny was founded in 1968. Since 1984 a permanent company, the Opéra de Québec, has given an average of two productions a year. Guy Bélanger (b 1946) was its first artistic and musical director. Performances are at the Grand Théâtre de Québec, where the symphony orchestra also performs.

Until around the 1850s music instruction was chiefly the province of private teachers, including Theodore Frederic Molt (1795–1856), the author of the first works on musical education. In 1868 the Académie de Musique de Québec was set up to promote and standardize music education programmes; since 1911 it has awarded its Prix d'Europe to a performer or a composer. In 1922 the Ecole de Musique of Laval University was founded; its prestige grew considerably in the late 1960s and the early 1970s, when Lucien Brochu (b 1920) was its director. In 1944 the university set up its Archives de Folklore; Ernest Gagnon's Chansons populaires du Canada (published in 1865), inspired research by Luc Lacourcière (1910–89), Conrad Laforte (b 1921) and Roger Matton (b 1929). The Quebec Conservatoire opened in 1944 under Wilfrid Pelletier (1896–1982). Composers associated with the university and the Conservatoire include Denys Bouliane (b 1955), Denis Dion (b 1957), Alain Gagnon (b 1938), Jacques Hétu (b 1938), Pierick Houdy (b 1929), François Morel (b 1926), Alain Perron (b 1959) and Armando Santiago (b 1932).

Archival collections at the Hôpital Général, the Hôtel-Dieu, the Monastère des Ursulines, the Séminaire de Québec and Laval University contain manuscript and printed music from the period of French rule (in particular liturgical compositions and theoretical treatises) as well as documents dating from after the 1760 conquest.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

EMC2

GroveO (E. Forbes)

E. Gagnon: ‘La musique à Québec au temps de Monseigneur de Laval’, Pages choisies (Quebec, 1917), 282–91

N. LeVasseur: ‘Musique et musiciens à Québec: souvenirs d'un amateur’, La musique [Quebec], i–iv (1919–22) [series of articles]

J.-F. Juchereau de Saint-Ignace and M.A.R. Duplessis de Sainte-Hélène: Les annales de l'Hôtel-Dieu de Québec: 1636–1716 (Quebec, 1939/R)

F. Malouin-Gélinas: La vie musicale à Québec de 1840 à 1845, telle que décrite par les journaux et revues de l'époque (MA thesis, U. of Montreal, 1975)

A. Bouchard and E. Gallat-Morin: Témoins de la vie musicale en Nouvelle-France (Quebec, 1981) [exhibition catalogue]

M. Calderisi: L'édition musicale au Canada, 1800–1867/Music Publishing in the Canadas, 1800–1867 (Ottowa, 1981)

M. Vézina-Demers: Aspects de la vie musicale à Québec de 1790 à 1794 d'après la presse québécoise de l'époque (MA thesis, U. of Laval, 1985)

V. Émond: ‘Musique et musiciens à Québec: souvenirs d'un amateur’ de Nazaire Levasseur (1848–1927): étude critique (Mémoire de maîtrise, U. of Laval, 1986)

J. Hare, M. Lafrance and D.-T. Ruddel: Histoire de la ville de Québec, 1608–1871 (Montreal, 1987)

C. Beaudry: ‘Catalogue des imprimés musicaux d'avant 1800 conservés à la bibliothèque de l'Université Laval’, Musical Canada: Words and Music Honouring Helmut Kallmann, ed. J. Beckwith and F.A. Hall (Toronto, 1988), 29–49

J. Bourassa-Trépanier and L. Poirier, eds.: Répertoire des données musicales de la presse québécoise, i (Quebec, 1991)

D. Bourassa: La contribution des bandes militaires britanniques au développement de la musique au Québec de la Conquête à 1836 (Mémoire de maîtrise, U. of Laval, 1993)

M. Vézina-Demers: Répertoire numérique détaillé de la série Musique, Fonds des Ursulines de Quebéc (Quebec, 1994)

CAROLE GRÉGOIRE