Documents found
-
161.
-
168.More information
In 1937, Marius Barbeau (1883-1969) produced his seminal work, Romancero du Canada. For this work, which explores the popular French Canadian song tradition, Barbeau drew direct inspiration from George Doncieux's Romancéro populaire de la France. In this article, we probe the origins of Barbeau's Romancero and consider two main opposing poles of influence on the author – that of Canada's Ernest Gagnon, and that of France's George Doncieux – in order to demonstrate the originality of Barbeau's book, which unfolds in tandem with his fieldwork discoveries. Its substance, thematic sections, and critical content also reveal the depth of Barbeau's intuition as well as his theoretical position on the European French origins and impressive quality of the French Canadian traditional song repertory. As it unfolds, this work from Barbeau's maturity reveals itself to be much more than a simple florilegium; it subtly transforms itself into a veritable treatise on the evolution of scholarly research in the field of French Canadian traditional song.
-
169.More information
Orality defines the format of the song. This article examines lis historical character within the context of Québec (1960-1980) and with special reference to the singers, the Osstidcho show, Québec performing groups and the lyrics sung by female singers. In song, spoken language is as it were appropriated by literary expression. Since Osstidcho, however, the characteristic earmark of the Québec song has been to give up literary language in favour of popular idiom. Performing groups, for example, have relinquished their use of meter in order to emphasize the accentual nature of French, whose pulsating movement expresses a more explicit North American sense of rhythm. In their bid for complete creation, female singers for their part have questioned the link between the body and orality. This fact has not been without consequences for the use of the French language. Since 1980, it is thus through the individual voice that many songs have found their «musical personality».