Significant Works in Canadian Music History

Early Canadian Music and Folk Songs

Alexander Muir

• The Maple Leaf Forever (1867)

Calixa Lavallée

• O Canada (1880)

Eva Gauthier

• À la claire fontaine
• (French woman singing with choir men; old days; associated with the founding of Samuel de Champlain’s L’Ordre de bon temps in 1606)

Traditional

• J'ai fait faire un beau navire

Stephen Codman

• The Fairy Song (1824)
• (Fast running pace piano with soprano)

Joseph Vézina

• Le Fétiche: J’ai pour maison
• (Piano with baritone at first, then with soprano; operetta)

Harry Somers

• Louis Riel
• (Male baritone/tenor singing opera; about Métis leader Louis Riel, who was executed in 1885)

Isidore Soucy

• En Roulant Ma Boule
• (Old French recording with men; primary activity is paddling, sung to paddle faster with one person taking the lead)

Music Inspired by Canadian Life and Landscape

Logging and the Lumber Camp

• O. J. Abbott

  • How We Got Back to the Woods Last Year
  • (Old man singing a cappella)

• Jacques Labrecque

  • Les Raftsmen
  • (Accordion with male voice)

• Wade Hemsworth

  • Log Driver's Waltz
  • (Girl singing; cartoon wilderness)

Songs of the Sea and Industry

• Omar Blondahl

  • Lukey's Boat
  • (Man with acoustic guitar; comic song from Newfoundland and Nova Scotia; first notated in 1929 by Elizabeth Greenleaf)

• Claud L. Graves

  • Oh What a Difference Since the Hydro Came (1913)
  • (Tenor singing in English with piano; reflects the shift from a predominantly agricultural economy to urbanization and the impact of electricity)

Contemporary Canadian Themes

• No No Keshagesh

  • Running for the Drum
  • (Rock; female vocals)

• Neil Young

  • Who's Gonna Stand Up
  • (Sounds like country music with guitar)

• Traditional / Folk

  • CPR Line
  • (Girls singing with piano)

20th and 21st Century Canadian Compositions

• John Beckwith

  • The Great Lakes Suite (1970)

• Gilles Tremblay

  • Fleuves (1973)
  • (20th century music with instrumental noise; contemporary)

• Healey Willan

  • Rise Up, My Love, My Fair One (1929)
  • (Choir of men and women)

• Barbara Croall

  • Noodin
  • (2 flutes only; noise and female Odawa whisper)

• Murray Adaskin

  • In Praise of Canadian Painting in the Thirties (1975)
  • (Orchestra; violin)

• Harry Freedman

  • Images
  • (Darker orchestra; fast flute; described as "batman")

• Jean Coulthard

  • The Pines of Emily Carr (1969)
  • (Narrator, mezzo-soprano, string quartet)

• Jocelyn Morlock

  • The Jack Pine (2010)
  • (Piano; easy chord; sparse texture; chord color)

• R. Murray Schafer

  • Music from Wilderness Lake: Dawn (1979)
  • (Brass; outside environment)

• Alexina Louie

  • Winter Music
  • (Storm drum and wind flute with fast pace; slow violin II, fast violin III)

• Violet Archer

  • Northern Landscape (1978)
  • (Big, hard piano sound; tenor in English)