Calixa Lavallée, the composer of “O Canada,” was the first Canadian-born musician to achieve an international reputation. While primarily remembered for the national anthem, Lavallée and his work extended well beyond Canada, and he played a multitude of roles in North American music as a composer, conductor, administrator, instrumentalist, educator, and critic. In Anthems and Minstrel Shows, Brian Thompson analyzes Lavallée’s music, letters, and published writings, as well as newspapers and music magazines of the time, to provide a detailed account of musical life in nineteenth-century North America and the relationship between music and nation. Leaving Quebec at age sixteen, Lavallée travelled widely for a decade as musical director of a minstrel troupe, and spent a year as a bandsman in the Union Army. Later, as a performer and conductor, he built a repertoire that prepared audiences for the intellectually challenging music of European composers and new music by his US contemporaries. His own music extended from national songs to comic operas, and instrumental music, as he shifted between the worlds of classical and popular music. Previously portrayed as a humble French Canadian forced into exile by ignorance and injustice, Lavallée emerges here as ambitious, radical, bohemian, and fully engaged with the musical, social, and political currents of his time. While nationalism and nation-building are central to this story, Anthems and Minstrel Shows asks to which nation – or nations – Lavallée and “O Canada” really belong.

Brian Christopher Thompson is a senior lecturer in the Department of Music at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Brian Christopher Thompson's profile page

“This is the fruition of [Thompson's] two decades’ endeavour, the first in-depth biography of the man who wrote “O Canada” (yet opposed Confederation).” Toronto Star

“Lavallée is an intriguing figure, and Thompson does an excellent job exploring the nuances of his life. Anthems and Minstrel Shows addresses the important role of music within society and the way politics was articulated in the early days of our country.

"The most detailed presentation of the life and accomplishments of the composer of Canada’s national anthem to date, Anthems and Minstrel Shows offers the reader a real sense of Calixa Lavallée, within the context of the political and social developments of his time." Elaine Keillor, Distinguished Research Professor Emerita, Carleton University and the author of Music in Canada

“Enfin, une biographie qui renouvelle la vision que nous avions de ce compositeur méconnu. L'auteur a eu recours des une somme incroyable de sources inédites, notamment pour retracer la carrière de Lavallée de son premier séjour aux États-Unis en 1859 jus

“Thompson does a good job providing nuance to Lavallée’s tangled history. Privileging details over idealization, Anthems and Minstrel Shows resounds like a complex contrapuntal harmony instead of a repetitive single-note melody.” Literary Review of Canada

“We’re not likely to get a more thorough biography of Calixa Lavallée than Anthems and Minstrel Shows, Brian Christopher Thompson’s huge and meticulous account of the life and times of the composer of “O Canada.”” Montreal Review of Books

Best book on Canadian music in 2015

by willowenine