Musical Spirit of Christmas Past

by Barbara Norman and Gilles St-Laurent, Music Division

This Christmas season, the National Library of Canada, in cooperation with Analekta Recordings Inc., has released two compact discs of Christmas music, one devoted to French-language music and the other to English. The recordings are entitled Les grandes voix du Canada chantent Noël (AN7805) and The Great Voices of Canada Sing Christmas (AN7806). Taken from early 20th century 78-RPM discs in the National Library's Recorded Sound Collection, the contents of the CD comprise works either performed or written by Canadians and/or recorded in Canada. Finding and selecting such recordings proved to be challenging, and that challenge highlighted some intriguing aspects of Canada's recorded-music history.

The selection process began with a perusal of the finding aids to the roughly 40 000 78-RPM discs held by the Music Division to find recordings of the more familiar Christmas titles. Then the search was expanded to include song indexes, song books and other compilations. A cut-off date of 1944 allowed us to choose recordings in the public domain from an era of recorded sound that is unfamiliar to many of today's listeners.

There are two exceptions to this cut-off date, both on the French CD: a gentle song entitled Le sommeil de l'enfant Jésus, recorded in 1948 by the Quatuor Alouette, and C'est Noël, ici on fête Serge, recorded on October 28, 1947 by Gérard LaJoie on accordion and Françoise Cazeault on piano. The Quatuor Alouette had been active throughout the previous two decades, and their style of quartet singing was immensely popular during the first 50 years of recorded sound. C'est Noël is a lively tune reminiscent of the French-Canadian tradition of the "veillée". It begins with Lajoie proudly announcing "Ici c'est Noël, moé j'fête Serge" [Now that it's Christmas, I salute Serge]. We have no clue who "Serge" might be or what the song refers to: obviously the song was a "must-include" item!

The CDs cover four decades of recorded sound. The earliest 78 used, dating from 1906, is a recording of Gounod's Noël, montez à Dieu sung by the celebrated French-Canadian tenor Joseph Saucier; the latest is the above-mentioned Le sommeil de l'enfant Jésus released in 1948. It is interesting to hear familiar and not so-familiar music performed in the styles of earlier eras by the stars of the day. Included are classically trained vocalists, vocal quartets, pop singers, a small choir, and a few oddities such as a 1924 French spoken-word tale of a small child's meeting with Santa Claus, a 1920 manic "one step" instrumental version of the Bells of St. Mary, and a 1918 "descriptive" narrative with musical accompaniment called Christmas Eve (Kiddies Patrol) that tells of Santa making his rounds.

It is difficult to find high-quality recordings of Canadian choirs until the early 1940s. There are a number of possible reasons for this: the level of technology might have precluded the regular recording of choral music, or the commercial market for smaller musical forms, such as anthems and carols rather than masses or oratorios, might have been too small. In general, Canadian public taste seems to have preferred recordings of the light entertainment repertoire.

A quick tally of the printed scores of the period revealed a preponderance of English-language music, largely of anthems and carols for church choir. The French printed scores, although considerably fewer in number, had a larger percentage of vocal solos, mostly religious. This may account in part for the greater number of classical recordings, particularly of solo Christmas songs, from French Canada.

It is noteworthy that we found about twice as many recordings of francophone as of anglophone Christmas music. Many of the English works featured Canadian performers, but were recorded in the United States. One article on early recorded sound production notes: "By and large, those Canadians who made records did so outside their home country. Canada itself was mainly an importer of recordings, although there was a steady market for homegrown products in French Canada, which had musical traditions of its own." ¹

Not surprisingly, there are very few recordings in either English or French from the early 1930s, as all but two Canadian record companies went bankrupt in the Great Depression. Both survivors, the Compo Company and "His Master's Voice" Victor, were based in Montreal. During this time, the popularity of the jukebox exerted a powerful influence on the recording industry, leading to an em-phasis on dance-band music rather than music for home listening. For instance, Winter Wonderland was the only song remotely related to Christmas that was recorded by the highly prolific Guy Lombardo between 1924 and 1942. ²

Christmas music has been composed, performed and cherished in Canada throughout history, but in subtly changing styles. These recordings present the Christmas message as performed by musicians of previous generations -- a glimpse of bygone Canadian holidays.

So, warm up the cocoa, gather the family in the parlour, wind up the gramophone and enjoy a blast from the past, with Season's Greetings from the Music Division of the National Library!

¹ "Recorded Sound Production", The Encyclopedia of Music in Canada (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992), p. 1111.

² Brian Rust, The American Dance Band Discography: 1917 to 1942, vol. 2 (New Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House, 1975), pp. 1109-1126.