Claude
Champagne:The Villa-Lobos Canadian Connection
Claude
Champagne:November, 2004:
Please note that the Villa-Lobos Website is no longer being updated.
This resource will remain on the RDPL server.
 |
Claude
Champagne was a Canadian composer and music educator who visited Heitor
Villa-Lobos in Rio de Janeiro in the 1940s. I recently came across
a very interesting web exhibit on the National Library of Canada's website,
entitled The
Claude Champagne Virtual Exhibition, and was struck by the many parallels
between the life and careers of the two composers (besides the fact that
they both loved cigars.)
Picture: Claude Champagne (seated) at the home
of Brazilian composer
Some
of these parallels are obvious when you compare the major milestones in
each of their lives:
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Claude Champagne
|
Heitor Villa-Lobos |
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Born 1891
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Born 1887 |
|
1920's: Travels to Europe - meets with Paul
Dukas, and studies with Charles Koechlin.
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1920's: Travels to Europe - hangs out with every important composer in Paris. |
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1924: Receives a bursary from the government
of the province of Quebec in order to continue his studies.
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1923: Receives a Brazilian government scholarship allowing him to compose and to visit Paris. |
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1930's: Returns to Canada to begin a second
career as a teacher. Dabbles in ethnomusicology.
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1930's: Returns to Brazil to begin a second career as a music teacher. Interested in folk music of Brazil. |
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1946: Champagne travels to Brazil - meets
Villa-Lobos.
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1946: Plans joint concerts in Rio with Champagne. |
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1950s/1960s: Receives many awards and honours.
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1950s: Receives many awards and honours. |
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1965: Dies at his home in Montreal.
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1959: Dies at his home in Rio de Janeiro. |
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During
the 1946 visit, the two composers planned a joint concert, which was performed
on September 6, 1946. Pictured to the left is the second page of
the draft of this concert, which includes a piece for solo piano by Champagne,
and the 8th string quartet by Villa-Lobos.
The Champagne piece, Quadrilha Brasileira, was written in 1942 at the request of Canadian ambassador to Brazil, in honour of Canada's Dominion Day (July 1st). It is available in RealAudio format on the National Library website, from a 1993 recording on the CBC / SRC Musica Viva series (MVCD 1060,) performed by Valerie Tryon. |
| Another
picture from the Champagne exhibit that will be of interest to Villa-Lobos
fans shows Champagne and Villa-Lobos with some famous colleagues.
Picture: From left to right: Lorenzo Fernandez,
Brazilian composer; Claude Champagne; Bidu Sayao, Brazilian soprano; Jean
Morel, French conductor; Heitor Villa-Lobos. [1946], photographer
unknown.
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 |
| Following
Champagne's visit to Brazil, he was able to return the hospitality: Villa-Lobos
visited Canada in 1952. He conducted the Orchestre
Symphonique de Montreal at Plateau Hall in a concert of his own music,
along with pieces by Chilean Humberto Allende and Argentina's Ernesto Drangosch.
Villa-Lobos was back in Canada in 1958, conducting the Toronto and CBC Symphony Orchestras. |
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