Chansons de voyageurs, coureurs de bois et forestiers by Madeleine Beland (review)

HUMANITIES 515 Chapter 1 is set off from parts one and two, and presents an introductory look at the broad theme of the study and its roots in recent music history. The Sprechstimme of Arnold Schoenberg is rightly identified as the most immediate antecedent. Anhalt goes beyond this, though, into a consideration of related and contemporary phenomena such as Futurist declamation, the politicallyinspired Collective Recitation and the 'sound poems' of the Dadaists. Most of this is culled from secondary sources, but is still a welcome corrective to the normally too-narrow view of texts on music history. This chapter anticipates many of the themes and preoccupations of succeeding ones, including the author's tendency to interpret his material in a freely intuitive way, as is probably appropriate for a creative artist. One example will illustrate this point and anticipate a larger and more fundamental theme of the book. After reading the score of a recent (1979) vocal composition, the author has 'the impression of having encountered the piece before. But where?' After rereading the instructions in the score, 'suddenly the concluding section of Baudelaire's ilLes Phares" came to mind' (p 15). The passages quoted from each are indeed strikingly alike, but no direct connection is ever established. The following paragraph mentions 'other works ... influenced by writers, such as Baudelaire, Rimbaud ...' etc (p 16), but the examples cited focus on childhood memories, not literary influences. Individual memory and a kind of collectively unconscious memory are both invoked and, perhaps unwittingly, confounded. We are thus alerted to the fact that this is not a work of music history, but rather a view from the 'inside' by a composer who is a participant in the movement he is studying. This is not to say that the treatment of history is merely perfunctory, and, to be fair, the author sometimes directs our attention to questions needing further investigation. The book may be profitably read as a collection of individual essays, or, somewhat less so, as a unified study. Judged individually, the 'core' chapters (2-6) are the most rewarding and convincingto me. The final two chapters seem less vivid, and thus weaken the whole, without detracting from the value of the parts. Finally, it should be said that it teaches as much about the author as it does about its subject, and when the author is a composer of Anhalt's stature, this may prove to be the book's greatest value in the long term. (ROBERT FALCK) Madeleine Beland. Chansons de voyageurs, coureurs de bois et forestiers Presses de l'Universite Laval 1982. 432. $25.00 paper Since the foundation of the Archives de folklore in the mid-194oS the , importance of Laval University as a centre for studies ofFrench-Canadian folk culture has never been in question. It is only in the past decade, however, that many of the riches of these archives have finally reached 516 LEITERS IN CANADA 1984 the public domain. Landmark research by Conrad Laforte, whose Catalogue de la chanson folklorique franfaise now has four of its projected volumes in print, is undoubtedly the inspiration and the facilitator of many subsequent collections, among them this one. Unlike other collections which have focused on an area or a particular informant, Beland defines her scope according to subject matter: the various types ofitinerant travellers/workers are listed in the title. She sees a common spirit and 'role' among these various groups, which she calls 'voyageurs.' First were the guide-interpreters who sought to establish a base for the fur trade, living with the Indians and learning their language and customs as a means to this end. The legendary and often notorious coureurs de bois followed them, fulfilling a function as explorers and traders, often as free and illegal agents. By the eighteenth century, fur traders usually sought the stability of employment by an established company and the label'coureur de bois,' now used pejoratively, gave way to 'voyageur canadien.' As the fur trade waned and the forest industry flourished in the nineteenth century, many individuals moved into this newline ofitinerantlabour: these menbecame the new voyageurs. Beland extends the term still further to apply to present-day hydroelectric employees, who...