Frédéric Pelletier

Frédéric Pelletier (1923)

Frédéric Pelletier (born May 1, 1870 in Montreal ; † May 30, 1944 there ) was a Canadian music critic, choir conductor and composer.

Pelletier studied piano with his father Romain-Octave Pelletier , singing with Guillaume Couture and harmony and counterpoint with Achille Fortier . He completed a medical degree, but soon gave up his practice in favor of his musical and journalistic interests.

Until 1914 he worked as a journalist and editor for various daily newspapers in Montreal, after which he was secretary of the city health department until 1921 and librarian and publicist with the health department of the province of Quebec until 1944. From 1900 he also worked as a columnist for various magazines. Until 1911 he published reviews and music reviews, etc. anonymously or under the pseudonym Remi Siffadaux . a. in La Patrie , La Presse and Le Devoir , whose music critic he was from 1916 to 1944. He also wrote for La Musique (1919–21), Musical America (1923–1925), Entre-Nous (1929–1931), L'Art musical , La Lyre , Musical Canada and Quinzaine musicale et artistique .

Pelletier worked as a choirmaster at St-Léon Church (1909), St James-the-Less (1910-1936) and Ste-Brigide (1923-1924). In 1922 he founded the Saint-Saëns Choral Society , with which he performed Samson et Dalila with the singers Cédia Brault and Émile Gour in the same year .

As a correspondent for the Association française d'expansion et d'échanges artistiques (later Association française d'action artistique ), he organized the first visit of the French children's choir Les Petits Chanteurs à la croix de bois in Canada in 1931 , which later included many of its folk song arrangements in its repertoire recorded.

He taught music history at the Conservatoire National in Montreal, from 1933 to 1944 also at the École Vincent d'Indy , and was president of the Académie de musique du Québec from 1932 to 1935 .

Pelletier composed motets , a requiem , two oratorios , folk song arrangements and organ works. He also wrote the foreword to the first comprehensive account of Canadian music history, Musiciens canadiens . His memoirs under the title Montreal, fin de siècle are still unprinted to this day.

In addition to him and his father, his brother Romain Pelletier was a well-known composer, his son Romain Pelletier a music critic and producer.

Works

• Stabat Mater , 1916
• Requiem Mass , 1919
• Ludus puerilis for organ, 1926 (orchestral version by Rosario Bourdon 1943)
• La Rédemption , oratorio
• Le Triptyque d'oraisons , oratorio, 1943

Fonts

• Foreword to Musiciens canadiens
• Initiation à l'orchestre , 1948
• Montréal, fin de siècle , autobiography, manuscript

Web links

• Vivianne Émond, Gilles Potvin: Frédéric Pelletier at The Canadian Encyclopedia (English)