Music of Canada
The music of Canada reflects the diverse influences that have shaped the country. Indigenous Peoples, the Irish, British, and the French have all made unique contributions to the musical heritage of Canada. The music has also subsequently been influenced by American culture because of the proximity between the two countries. Since French explorer Samuel de Champlain arrived in 1605 and established the first permanent French settlements at Port Royal and Québec in 1608, the country has produced its own composers, musicians and ensembles.
Canadian music reflects a variety of regional scenes. Government support programs, such as the Canada Music Fund, assist a wide range of musicians and entrepreneurs who create, produce and market original and diverse Canadian music. The Canadian music industry is the sixth-largest in the world, producing internationally renowned composers, musicians and ensembles. Music broadcasting in the country is regulated by the CRTC. The Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences presents Canada's music industry awards, the Juno Awards, which were first awarded in 1970. The Canadian Music Hall of Fame, established in 1976, honours Canadian musicians for their lifetime achievements.
Patriotic music in Canada dates back over 200 years as a distinct category from British patriotism, preceding Canadian Confederation by over 50 years. The earliest work of patriotic music in Canada, "The Bold Canadian", was written in 1812. The national anthem, "O Canada", was originally commissioned by the lieutenant governor of Quebec, Théodore Robitaille, for the 1880 St. Jean-Baptiste Day ceremony and was officially adopted in 1980. Calixa Lavallée wrote the music, which was a setting of a patriotic poem composed by the poet and judge Sir Adolphe-Basile Routhier. The text was originally only in French before it was adapted into English in 1906.
History
Indigenous music
For thousands of years, Canada has been inhabited by indigenous peoples from a variety of different cultures and of several major linguistic groupings. Each of the Indigenous communities had their own unique musical traditions. Chanting is widely popular, with many of its performers also using a variety of musical instruments. They used the materials at hand to make their instruments for thousands of years before Europeans immigrated to the new world. They made gourds and animal horns into rattles which were elaborately carved and painted. In woodland areas, they made horns of birchbark along with drumsticks of carved antlers and wood. Drums were generally made of carved wood and animal hides. These musical instruments provide the background for songs and dances.For many years after European settlement, First Nations and Inuit peoples were discouraged from practicing their traditional ceremonies. However, impacts varied significantly depending on such aspects as the time period, relative population size, relation quality, resistance, etc. In 1606–1607 Marc Lescarbot collected the earliest extant transcriptions of songs from the Americas: three songs of Henri Membertou, the sakmow of the Mi'kmaq First Nations tribe situated near Port Royal, present-day Nova Scotia.
17th century
to New France brought with them a great love of song, dance and fiddle playing. Beginning in the 1630s French and Indigenous children at Québec were taught to sing and play European instruments, like viols, violins, guitars, transverse flutes, drums, fifes and trumpets. Ecole des Ursulines and The Ursuline Convent are among North America's oldest schools and the first institutions of learning for women in North America. Both were founded in 1639 by French nun Marie of the Incarnation alongside the laywoman Marie-Madeline de Chauvigny de la Peltrie and are the first Canadian institutions to have music as part of the curriculum.The earliest written record of violins in Canada comes from the Jesuit Relation of 1645. The Jesuits additionally have the first documented organ sale, imported for their Québec chapel in 1657. Notre-Dame de Québec Cathedral, built in 1647, is the primatial church of Canada and seat of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Quebec. It is the oldest Catholic "Episcopal see" in the New World north of Mexico and site of the first documented choir in Canada.
In what was then known as New France, the first formal ball was given by Louis-Théandre Chartier de Lotbinière on 4 February 1667. Louis Jolliet is on record as one of the first classically trained practicing musicians in New France, although history has recognized him more as an explorer, hydrographer and voyageur. Jolliet is said to have played the organ, harpsichord, flute, and trumpet. In 1700, under British rule at this time, an organ was installed in Notre-Dame Basilica in Montreal and military bands gave concerts on the Champ de Mars. A French-born priest, René Ménard, composed motets around 1640, and a second Canadian-born priest, Charles-Amador Martin, is credited with the plainchant music for the Sacrae familiae felix spectaculum, in celebration of the Holy Family feast day in 1700.
18th century
Historically, music was composed in Canada's colonies and settlements during the 18th century, although very few popular named works have survived or were even published. The French and Indian Wars began and left the population economically drained and ill-equipped to develop cultural pursuits properly. The part-time composers of this period were nonetheless often quite skilled. Traditional songs and dances, such as those of the Habitants and Métis, were transmitted orally, from generation to generation and from village to village, thus people felt no need to transcribe or publish them. Printed music was required, for music teachers and their pupils, who were from the privileged minority where domestic music making was considered a proof of gentility. Music publishing and printing in Europe by this time was a thriving industry, but it did not begin in Canada until the 19th century. Canadian composers were not able to focus entirely on creating new music in these years, as most made their living in other musical activities such as leading choirs, church organists and teaching. Regimental bands were musically a part of civil life and typically featured a dozen woodwind and brass instruments, performing at parades, festive ceremonies, minuets, country dances and balls.After the 1760s, regular concerts became a part of the cultural landscape, as well as a wide variety of dancing. Operatic excerpts began to appear, and before the end of the century Canada had its first home-grown opera. A "Concert Hall" existed in Québec by 1764 and subscription concerts by 1770, given, one may presume, by band players and skilled amateurs. Programs for the Québec and Halifax concerts of the 1790s reveal orchestral and chamber music by Handel, J.C. Bach, Haydn, Mozart and Pleyel. Canada's first two operas were written, ca. 1790 and ca. 1808 by composer, poet, and playwright Joseph Quesnel. The instrument of favour for the lower class was the fiddle. Fiddlers were a fixture in most public drinking establishments. God Save the King/Queen has been sung in Canada since British rule and by the mid-20th century was, along with "O Canada", one of the country's two de facto national anthems.
19th century
The beginning of the 19th century Canadian musical ensembles had started forming in great numbers, writing waltzes, quadrilles, polkas and galops. The first volumes of music printed in Canada was the "Graduel romain" in 1800 followed by the "Union Harmony" in 1801. Folk music was still thriving, as recounted in the poem titled "". The poem was composed by the Irish poet Thomas Moore during a visit to Canada in 1804. "The Canadian Boat Song" was so popular that it was published several times over the next forty years in Boston, New York City and Philadelphia. Dancing likewise was an extremely popular form of entertainment as noted In 1807 by the Scottish traveler and artist George Heriot, who wrote:Among the earliest musical societies were Halifax's "New Union Singing Society" of 1809 and Québec's "Harmonic Society" of 1820. One of the first registered all-civilian musical ensembles was a religious sect organized from Upper Canada called the Children of Peace in 1820. In 1833, a student orchestra was organized at the Séminaire de Québec the Société Ste-Cécile, as it was known, and was one of the earliest ensembles of its kind in Lower Canada. The first appearance of a piece of music in a newspaper or magazine was in the pages of the Montreal twice-weekly newspaper, La Minerve, on September 19, 1831. Many immigrants during this time lived in relative isolation and music sometimes obtained through subscriptions to newspapers and magazines, provided entertainment and a life line to civilization. One of the earliest surviving publications in Canada of a song on the piano in sheet music format is "The Merry Bells of England" by J. F. Lehmann, of Bytown in 1840. It was published by John Lovell in the literary magazine Literary Garland.
The Great Migration of Canada from 1815 to 1850, consisting largely of Irish, and British immigrants, broadened considerably the Canadian musical culture. 1844, Samuel Nordheimer opened a music store in Toronto selling pianos and soon thereafter began to publish engraved sheet music. Samuel Nordheimers store was among the first and the largest specialized music publisher in the Province of Canada. They initially had the sole right to publish copies of Alexander Muir's "The Maple Leaf Forever" that for many years served as an unofficial Canadian national anthem.
By the time of Canadian Confederation, songwriting had become a favored means of personal expression across the land. In a society in which most middle-class families now owned a harmonium or piano, and standard education included at least the rudiments of music, the result was often an original song. Such stirrings frequently occurred in response to noteworthy events, and few local or national excitements were allowed to pass without some musical comment.
The 1870s saw several conservatories open their doors, providing their string, woodwind and brass faculty, leading to the opportunity for any class level of society to learn music. in 1876 by Hamilton-based Robert S. Ambrose, became one of the most popular songs to ever be published in the 19th century. It fulfilled the purpose of being an appropriate song to sing in the parlors of homes that would not permit any non-sacred music to be performed on Sundays. At the same time it could be sung in dance halls or on the stage along with selections from operas and operettas.
"O Canada" was originally commissioned by the Lieutenant Governor of Quebec, the Honourable Théodore Robitaille, for the 1880 St. Jean-Baptiste Day ceremony. Calixa Lavallée wrote the music, which was a setting of a patriotic poem composed by the poet and judge Sir Adolphe-Basile Routhier. The text was originally only in French, before it was translated into English from 1906 on.
Leo, the Royal Cadet a light opera with music by Oscar Ferdinand Telgmann and a libretto by George Frederick Cameron was composed in Kingston, Ontario, in 1889. The work centres on Nellie's love for Leo, a cadet at the Royal Military College of Canada who becomes a hero serving during the Anglo-Zulu War in 1879. The operetta focussed on typical character types, events and concerns of Telgmann and Cameron's time and place.