Music for “La Confédération quadrille”
Document
Image
Video
Audio
Activities
LOOK
Look at this image. Can you find political or visual symbols in it? Read the historical context below to verify your answer.
LISTEN
Listen to the Confederation Quadrille. How does the music make you feel? Now, read the historical context below. Do you feel differently about the piece?
THINK
What makes music, even without lyrics, such a powerful means of getting a point across? Explain your thoughts, using examples from your own experience, if possible.
Extension: Use other examples from history to prove your point. This may take some extra research.
DO
Pick a song that has a message you believe in. Create cover art for that song and include images that serve as symbols for its message.
Details
Date 1865
Materials - Paper
- Ink
Transcript
To His Excellency, Viscount George Diocletian de Braun, Knight of the Big Beaver, Minister of Cults, etc. etc.
The Confederation Quadrille.
[Long live our… King! George V!]
[Strength lies in numbers. Divorce-Court]
[Intercolonial Railroad. Look out for the locomotive!]
[Fenians-ville]
[Great-Bear-City-1795. Miles to Quebec. Refreshments]
[N.B. No Go]
[Gaspé-City.]
[Ministerial Calf-Catcher £100]
[Greenland Express]
[L.C. O! (Upper) Canada! My country, my darlings. Poet Eng. Can. Confederate.]
[Royal Gallery. G.T.R.R.]
[Superior race. U.C., N.S., I.NFL., P.E.I., 1st Class]
[Hudson Bay. Christian Education, Our Religion, Our language, Our way of life, and our LAWS.]
National Dance.
Inaugurated in 1840. Fatal blow in 1865.
Composed by Léon Castorti.
Montréal.
Adélard J. Boucher
Rue Notre Dame.
No. 260.
[Lith of Major & Knapp, 71 Broadway, N.Y.]
[Naturalization and passport 60cnett]
[Québec. Provincial Capital. R. Morgan]
[Ottawa. Federal Capital. Lord Hard-Man (phonetic and literal translation of Durham.]
Historical Context
Choose one of the three levels below to match your needs.
- Some French Canadians feared that their society would be endangered with Confederation.
- This sheet music represents French concerns about Confederation through imagery and music.
- Canadian pianist, Madeline Hildebrand, made this recording of the music in 2020.
George-Étienne Cartier — a defender of French Canada and a Father of Confederation — insisted that French Canadians be given a provincial government that could protect their interests under Confederation. But not all French Canadians believed that they would be protected.
This image comes from the sheet music for a piece entitled La Confédération quadrille: danse nationale. It was written under the pseudonym Léon Casorti and expresses concerns French Canadians had about Confederation.
A beaver, representing English Canada, drives a chariot bearing a flag that reads (translated) “Superior race.”
Behind the chariot, an elk, representing the Hudson’s Bay Company, pulls four bound men. Each man represents an aspect of French-Canadian society that Casorti feared was under threat: Catholicism, French language, culture and civil law.
Canadian pianist, Madeline Hildebrand, made this recording of the music in 2020.
George-Étienne Cartier, a defender of French Canada and a Father of Confederation, insisted that French Canadians be given a provincial government that could protect their language, culture and civil law under Confederation. But not all French Canadians believed that their interests would be protected.
This image comes from the sheet music for a piece entitled La Confédération quadrille: danse nationale. It was written under the pseudonym Léon Casorti and expresses concerns French Canadians had about Confederation.
A beaver, representing English Canada, drives a chariot bearing a flag that reads (translated) “Superior race.”
Behind the chariot, an elk, representing the Hudson’s Bay Company, pulls four bound men. Each man represents an aspect of French-Canadian society that Casorti feared was under threat: Catholicism, French language, culture and civil law.
Some researchers consider Calixa Lavallée — who wrote O Canada — as the real composer of this piece. Lavallée believed that francophones in Canada East (soon to be Quebec) had more in common with French Canadians who had migrated to New England than with those in Ottawa or in the western Prairies.
Canadian pianist, Madeline Hildebrand, made this recording of the music in 2020.
- Some French Canadians feared that their society would be endangered with Confederation.
- This sheet music represents French concerns about Confederation through imagery and music.
- Canadian pianist, Madeline Hildebrand, made this recording of the music in 2020.
George-Étienne Cartier — a defender of French Canada and a Father of Confederation — insisted that French Canadians be given a provincial government that could protect their interests under Confederation. But not all French Canadians believed that they would be protected.
This image comes from the sheet music for a piece entitled La Confédération quadrille: danse nationale. It was written under the pseudonym Léon Casorti and expresses concerns French Canadians had about Confederation.
A beaver, representing English Canada, drives a chariot bearing a flag that reads (translated) “Superior race.”
Behind the chariot, an elk, representing the Hudson’s Bay Company, pulls four bound men. Each man represents an aspect of French-Canadian society that Casorti feared was under threat: Catholicism, French language, culture and civil law.
Canadian pianist, Madeline Hildebrand, made this recording of the music in 2020.
George-Étienne Cartier, a defender of French Canada and a Father of Confederation, insisted that French Canadians be given a provincial government that could protect their language, culture and civil law under Confederation. But not all French Canadians believed that their interests would be protected.
This image comes from the sheet music for a piece entitled La Confédération quadrille: danse nationale. It was written under the pseudonym Léon Casorti and expresses concerns French Canadians had about Confederation.
A beaver, representing English Canada, drives a chariot bearing a flag that reads (translated) “Superior race.”
Behind the chariot, an elk, representing the Hudson’s Bay Company, pulls four bound men. Each man represents an aspect of French-Canadian society that Casorti feared was under threat: Catholicism, French language, culture and civil law.
Some researchers consider Calixa Lavallée — who wrote O Canada — as the real composer of this piece. Lavallée believed that francophones in Canada East (soon to be Quebec) had more in common with French Canadians who had migrated to New England than with those in Ottawa or in the western Prairies.
Canadian pianist, Madeline Hildebrand, made this recording of the music in 2020.
Summary
- Some French Canadians feared that their society would be endangered with Confederation.
- This sheet music represents French concerns about Confederation through imagery and music.
- Canadian pianist, Madeline Hildebrand, made this recording of the music in 2020.
Essential
George-Étienne Cartier — a defender of French Canada and a Father of Confederation — insisted that French Canadians be given a provincial government that could protect their interests under Confederation. But not all French Canadians believed that they would be protected.
This image comes from the sheet music for a piece entitled La Confédération quadrille: danse nationale. It was written under the pseudonym Léon Casorti and expresses concerns French Canadians had about Confederation.
A beaver, representing English Canada, drives a chariot bearing a flag that reads (translated) “Superior race.”
Behind the chariot, an elk, representing the Hudson’s Bay Company, pulls four bound men. Each man represents an aspect of French-Canadian society that Casorti feared was under threat: Catholicism, French language, culture and civil law.
Canadian pianist, Madeline Hildebrand, made this recording of the music in 2020.
In-Depth
George-Étienne Cartier, a defender of French Canada and a Father of Confederation, insisted that French Canadians be given a provincial government that could protect their language, culture and civil law under Confederation. But not all French Canadians believed that their interests would be protected.
This image comes from the sheet music for a piece entitled La Confédération quadrille: danse nationale. It was written under the pseudonym Léon Casorti and expresses concerns French Canadians had about Confederation.
A beaver, representing English Canada, drives a chariot bearing a flag that reads (translated) “Superior race.”
Behind the chariot, an elk, representing the Hudson’s Bay Company, pulls four bound men. Each man represents an aspect of French-Canadian society that Casorti feared was under threat: Catholicism, French language, culture and civil law.
Some researchers consider Calixa Lavallée — who wrote O Canada — as the real composer of this piece. Lavallée believed that francophones in Canada East (soon to be Quebec) had more in common with French Canadians who had migrated to New England than with those in Ottawa or in the western Prairies.
Canadian pianist, Madeline Hildebrand, made this recording of the music in 2020.