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also suitable for treble voices; solo or choral
First performed by tenor Mark Dubois and baritone Mark Pedrotti with the arranger at the piano at the National Arts Center, Ottawa Canada on November 28, 1982
This was my first arrangement of Canadian folk material for professional performance. Tenor Mark Dubois and baritone Mark Pedrotti were engaged to do a recital program of songs and duets at the National Arts Center and I had the pleasure of accompanying. We had performed similar programs in smaller venues before and had occasionally ended the recital with some of these folksongs for which we improvised simple arrangements, My part in these improvisations was always the most modest, sometimes even reduced to playing the tambourine. I did not feel comfortable considering such a performance in Ottawa! So I offered to arrange three songs for my colleagues in a more formal but also simple and spontaneous manner. The first song is one of the best known of those of the French voyageurs or “raftsmen” as they heard the English say (pronounced “raff-MANN” in turn, by the French). This paddling song would help the time pass on long canoe trips and would also assist in coordinating the strokes of the oar, even with the the little 3/4 bar rhythmic catch that enlivens each verse. Un Canadien errant was written to an earlier folk tune in response to the Lower Canada Rebellion of 1837-8, but its haunting expression of homesickness and regret still speaks profoundly to Canadians today, French and English alike. The idea for the arrangement of the spirited dance song Vive la Canadienne! was inspired by Ingolf Dahl’s Quodlibet on American Folk Tunes for two pianos, eight hands, a piece I had performed while a undergraduate. A quodlibet, or “as you please”, is a form in which many independent but harmonically complimentary songs, usually well-known and easily recognizable tunes, are superimposed for amusing or entertaining effect. Since their debut, these arrangements have been performed by many diverse groups of singers: Men’s voices, treble voices and other combinations of mixed voices as well. They also suit both solo or choral performance. If sung by a chorus, a resourceful music director might decide to assign certain lines to appropriate soloists within the choral texture.
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