Calixa Lavallée

Calixa Lavallée (born December 28, 1842 near Verchères in Québec ; † January 21, 1891 in Boston ) was a French-Canadian musician who composed, among other things, the Canadian national anthem O Canada .

Calixa Lavallées (originally Callixte) parents came from Poitou in France, but the family's roots go back to Scotland. His musical interests were aroused in his childhood by his father Augustin Lavallée. He had a forge in which he also made instruments. He taught his son to play the piano, organ and violin.

In 1857 he went to the United States and won a competition in New Orleans and had the opportunity to travel to South America and Mexico to accompany a Spanish violinist. In September 1861, he joined the Union Army in Providence . He is said to have been injured during the civil war , which may also be the reason for his early honorable discharge from the army in October 1862.

Lavallée then returned to Canada and gave a concert in Montreal in January 1864 . However, shortly afterwards he moved back to the States in New Orleans, then to San Diego and New England. In 1867 he married Josephine Gently in Lowell , Massachusetts, with whom he had 4 sons.

Now Lavalée moved to Boston and worked as a teacher. It is believed that his opera "TIQ, the Indian question settled at last" was written around this time. In 1870 Calixa Lavallée became director of the Grand Opera House in New York . For this he composed the operetta Koulou. It was first performed in 1872, but when James Fisk, owner of the Grand Opera House, was murdered, production stopped and Lavallée lost his job.

He went back to Montreal and in the spring of 1875 he made his way to Paris for further education. He had piano lessons with Antoine François Marmontel , and the composers François Bazin and François-Adrien Boïeldieu were among his teachers.

In July 1875 he made his way back to Montreal with the intention of staging famous operas there. The project failed, and Lavallée went back to the United States, where he became a professor at the Boston Conservatory . In 1886 he was elected President of the Music Teachers National Association .

In addition to three operas and three overtures , Lavallée composed a funeral march and salon music. He is buried in the Notre-Dame-des-Neiges cemetery in Montreal.

literature

• Calixa Lavallée . In: Dictionary of Canadian Biography . 24 volumes, 1966–2018. University of Toronto Press, Toronto ( English , French ).