Calixa Lavallée

Lavallée was born Calixte Paquet dit Lavallée near Verchères, a village near present-day Montreal in the Province of Canada (now the Canadian province of Quebec). He was a descendant of Isaac Pasquier, from Poitou, France, who arrived in Nouvelle-France in 1665 as a soldier in the Carignan-Salières regiment. Lavallée's father Augustin Lavallée, worked as a blacksmith, logger, bandmaster, self-taught luthier[3] and bandleader, and also worked for the pipe organ builder Joseph Casavant. Calixa Lavallée's mother was Charlotte-Caroline Valentine.

Lavallée began his musical education with his father (Eli Grande), who taught him organ by age 11. Lavallée also studied in Montréal with Paul Letondal and Charles Wugk Sabatier.[4]

At age 13, Lavallée performed a piano concert at the Théâtre royal de Montréal. In 1857, he moved to the U.S. and lived in Rhode Island. After performing as a musician in a number of countries, including in Brazil and Mexico, he returned to the U.S., where he enlisted in the 4th Rhode Island Volunteers of the Union Army as a cornet player during the American Civil War. He attained the rank of lieutenant.[2] He was wounded in the Battle of Antietam. During and after the war, he traveled between Canada and the United States building his career in music.

Lavallée returned to Montreal in 1863, and for two years performed concerts there.[4] In the 1860s he also resided briefly in Chicago, Philadelphia, and New York, but spent most of his time travelling with minstrel show companies. In 1867, he married an American woman, Josephine Gentilly (or "Gently").

Lavallée worked as a pianist, organist and music teacher, and also conducted orchestral and operatic productions in concert halls, including the Montréal Academy of Music in Montréal, Quebec City and in many U.S. cities. Among his pupils was composer Alexis Contant.[5]

Lavallée returned to Montreal in the 1870s,[4] where he continued to perform and compose.[6] To celebrate St. Jean-Baptiste Day in 1880, the Lieutenant Governor of Québec, Théodore Robitaille, commissioned Lavallée to compose "O Canada" to a patriotic poem by Adolphe-Basile Routhier.[2] After some financial difficulties in Canada, Lavallée again moved to the United States.[7] In his later life he promoted the idea of union between Canada and the U.S.[7]

During the later years of his life, Lavallée was the choirmaster at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in Boston, and he died penniless in that city in 1891.[8] As the result of the campaign by the Montréal-based music director of the Victoria's Rifles, Joseph-Laurent Gariépy, his remains were returned to Montréal and reinterred at Côte-des-Neiges Cemetery in 1933.[1]

• Peacocks in Difficulties/Loulou, comic opera
• The Bridal Rose Overture, operetta
• The King of Diamonds, overture
• L'Absence, lyrics by Remi Tremblay, 1882–1885[9]
• L'Oiseau Mouche, Bluette de Salon, Op.11, 1865?[9]
• La Rose Nuptiale", brass quintet
• Une Couronne de Lauriers, Caprice de Genre, Op.10, 1865[9]
• Le Papillon (The Butterfly) Étude de Concert for piano, 1874/1884[9]
• La Patrie (1874).[10]
• Marche funèbre, 1878[9]
• Violette, cantilène, lyrics by Napoleon Legendre and P.J. Curran, 1879[9]
• "O Canada", 1880[9]
• The Widow, 1881, comic opera (known in French as La veuve)
• TIQ (The Indian Question), Settled at Last, 1882, comic opera

The village of Calixa-Lavallée, southeast of Montreal, is named after him. The professional training school Calixa-Lavallée in Quebec also bears his name. The following roads were named to honour Calixa Lavallée:

• Avenue Calixa-Lavallée, located in Shawinigan, Quebec, Canada.
• Avenue Calixa-Lavallée, located in Quebec, Quebec, Canada.
• Rue Calixa-Lavallée, located in Magog, Quebec, Canada.
• Rue Calixa-Lavallée, located in Boucherville, Quebec, Canada.
• Rue Calixa-Lavallée, located in Repentigny, Quebec, Canada.
• Rue Calixa-Lavallée, a dead-end street entering into Lafontaine Park, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
• Calixa-Lavallée Privée (Calixa-Lavallée Pvt.) a small dead-end laneway on the University of Ottawa campus

• Calixa-Lavallée Award
• Music of Canada
• List of Canadian composers
• Canada in the American Civil War

Notes

References

• Francis, R. Douglas; Jones, Richard &Donald Smith, Robert Wardhaugh (2011). Destinies: Canadian History Since Confederation (2011 ed.). Nelson Education Limited. ISBN 9780176502515.CS1 maint: ref=harv (link) - Total pages: 608
• Thompson, Brian (2015). Anthems and Minstrel Shows: The Life and Times of Calixa Lavallée, 1842-1891. Montreal ; Kingston ; Ithaca: McGill-Queen's University Press. ISBN 9780773545557.

• The Canadian Encyclopedia
• Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online
• Free scores by Calixa Lavallée at the International Music Score Library Project (IMSLP)
• Free scores by Calixa Lavallée in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)
• Doctoral dissertation by Brian C. Thompson
• Anthems and Minstrel Shows: The Life and Times of Calixa Lavallée (2015) biography by Brian C. Thompson
• The Canadian Sheet Music Collection from the [University of Toronto Libraries, hosted at the [Internet Archive]