APPENDIX THE FRENCH-CANADIAN FOLK-SONG

The songs of the French Canadians, which show considerable originality, are in part transplanted from France, modified and localized in the natural course of popular music. But a considerable part are indigenous, with a history dating back, possibly, more than two centuries. They are all, of course, made in imitation of the parent stock, but in many instances they have taken on a new character, befitting the wild and uncouth environment in which they were composed. In some instances they show model characteristics, as in the Mon Cri Cra, Tir’ la Liretta, sung by the boatmen on the Red River. This old song shows scarcely any traces of the omnipresent influence of the court of Louis XIV. Other songs bear the marks of the French priests, through whose hands they passed on their way to the Canadian natives, Indians or Frenchmen. Such a song is Jesos Ahatonhia, the music of which was evidently an ecclesiastical melody with a strong modal character indicating its great age. But on the whole the refined and graceful influence of French civilization is strongly marked in the Canadian songs, even when these songs originated in the New World. The one department in which they are supreme is that of playful humor—not the humor of the old English songs, which is somewhat bumptious and muscular, but a more delicate humor, into which the singer enters from pure effervescence of human sympathy and childlike playfulness. We must range a long way through folk-song literature before we find a song of this sort to equal ‘The White Duck,’ or ‘I Hear a Mill Go Tick-Tack.’ A provocative playfulness sings in the words of ‘My Faithful Bottle,’ ‘The Lost Chance,’ and the inimitable ‘When Returning from Varennes,’ with its continuous refrain, Cach’ton joli bas de laine. The spirit of Gascony, famous home of the practical joke, is in the ‘Song of Lies,’ in which the singer turns the world topsy-turvy and hopes to be hung if a single word he says is true. The sentimental note is not so often struck, but we find it charmingly in such occasional songs as ‘The Traveller’s Return,’ and ‘From Yonder on the Mountains.’

Gagnon’s collection, made in 1865 (the earliest of all), contains a number of gentle and lovely airs, such as C’est la belle française. We may also notice in this book a number which have been transported from France and forgotten in the home country while they lived and flourished under their foster mother. Such a song is Dans les Prisons de Nantes. Mon Per’ n’avait fille que moi is one of the most interesting examples of the old modal style. The Canadian songs are peculiarly addicted to the use of the refrain. This device, which is always a mark of unsophisticated playfulness, is relied upon to such an extent that one would call it excessive if the high spirits of the music and words did not carry the little game through to complete success. As so often happens, the refrain frequently has nothing whatever to do with the sense of the text. The primitive innocence of the mind is absolutely demanded of any singer who attempts, for instance, ‘The White Duck.’ On the whole, the Canadian songs, though very limited in range, can show a few types of folk-expression managed with such consummate art that they deserve a place in the folk-literature of the world.

LITERATURE FOR VOLUME V

(In English)

A. B. Bach: The Principles of Singing (London, 1897).

J. Frank Botume: Modern Singing Methods (London, 1885).

Lennox Browne and Emil Behnker: Voice, Song and Speech (2nd ed., London, 1884).

Anna Chapin: Makers of Song (New York, 1904).

William Chappell: Old English Popular Music, 2 vols. (London, 1893).

H. Holbrook Curtis, M. D.: Voice Building and Tone Placing (New York, 1896).

Henry T. Finck: Songs and Song Writers (New York, 1910).

Ffrangcon-Davies: The Singing of the Future (London, 1904).

Folk-Songs from Somerset, 5 vols. (London, 1904-8).

Harry Plunkett Greene: Interpretation in Song (New York, 1912).

Max Heinrich: Correct Principles of Classical Singing (Boston, 1910).

H. L. F. Helmholtz: The Study of Sensations of Tone (Trans. by A. J. Ellis, 1875).

W. J. Henderson: The Art of Singing (New York, 1906).

Gordon Holmes: A Treatise on Vocal Physiology and Hygiene (1879).

John Howard: The Physiology of Artistic Singing (1886).

Dora Jones: Lyric Diction (New York, 1913).

Kickson and Neal: English Folk-song and Dance (Cambridge, Eng., 1905).

H. E. Krehbiel: Afro-American Folk-song (New York, 1914).

Louis Lablache: Complete Method of Singing.

Francesco Lamperti: A Treatise on the Art of Singing (Trans. by J. C. Griffiths, 1876).

Lilli Lehmann: How to Sing (New York, 1912).

Eugenie Lineva: Peasant Songs of Great Russia (Engl. and Russian text, Imperial Academy of Science, St. Petersburg).

Sir Morell Mackenzie: The Hygiene of the Vocal Organs (London, 1890).

Giovanni Battista Mancini: Practical Reflections on Figured Song (Engl. transl. by Pietro Buzzi, Boston, 1913).

Matilda Marchesi: Ten Singing Lessons (London, 1901).

Wesley Mills, M. D.: Voice Production in Singing and Speaking (1906).

Sir C. Hubert H. Parry: The Evolution of the Art of Music (1899).

C. K. Rogers: My Voice and I (Chicago, 1910).

E. W. Scripture: The Elements of Experimental Phonetics (1902).

William Shakespeare: The Art of Singing, 3 parts (London, 1898).

W. Warren Shaw: The Lost Vocal Art (Phila., 1914).

Shays: English Folk-Carols (London, 1911).

Shays: English Folk-Chanteys (London, 1914).

Shays: English Folk-Songs; Some Conclusions (London, 1907).

David C. Taylor: The Psychology of Singing (New York, 1908).

Pietro Francesco Tosi: Observations on the Florid Song (1723). (Reprint by William Reeves, London, 1905.)

George P. Upton: The Song (Chicago, 1915).

In German

Erk und Böhme: Deutscher Liederhort, 3 vols. (Leipzig, 1893).

Max Friedländer: Das deutsche Lied im 18. Jahrhundert, 2 vols. (Stuttgart and Berlin, 1902).

H. L. F. Helmholtz: Die Lehre der Tonempfindungen.

R. G. Kiesewetter: Schicksale und Beschaffenheit des weltlichen Gesanges, etc. (1841).

Dr. L. Mandl: Die Gesundheitslehre der Stimme (1876).

Carl Ludwig Merkl: Der Kehlkopf (1873).

In French

F. J. Fétis: Histoire générale de la musique (1869).

Méthode de chant du Conservatoire de Musique (Paris, 1803).

Julien Tiersot: Histoire de la chanson populaire en France (Paris, 1889).

J. B. Weckerlin: Chansons populaires du pays de France, 2 vols. (Paris, 1903).

In Italian

Giovanni Battista Mancini: Reflessioni pratiche sul canto figurato (1777).

Giulio Caccini: Le nouve musiche (Florence, 1600).