Joseph Quesnel

{{Short description|French Canadian composer, poet and playwright}}

File:Schipper Painting of Joseph Quesnel.jpg. Collection du Musée régional de Vaudreuil-Soulanges ]]

Joseph Quesnel (15 November 1746 – 2 or 3 July 1809) was a French Canadian composer, poet and playwright. Among his works were two operas, Colas et Colinette and Lucas et Cécile; the former is considered to be the first Canadian opera and probably of North America.{{cite web |url=https://carleton.ca/carletonsound/cscd1011.html |title=Canadian Songs for Parlour and Stage |website=Carleton University |location=Ottawa, Ontario, Canada }}{{cite book|author=Helmut Kallmann|title=Mapping Canada's Music: Selected Writings of Helmut Kallmann|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=T43ZAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA59|date=25 May 2013|publisher=Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press|isbn=978-1-55458-892-3|pages=50–59}}

Early life and education

Quesnel was born in Saint-Malo, France, the third child of Isaac Quesnel de La Rivaudais (1712-1779), a prosperous merchant, and his wife Pélagie-Jeanne-Marguerite Duguen.{{cite book|author=Leonard E. Doucette|title=Theatre in French Canada: laying the foundations, 1606-1867|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MVFcAAAAMAAJ|year=1984|publisher=University of Toronto Press|isbn=978-0-8020-5579-8|page=52}} He studied at the Collège Saint-Louis (1766).

Life and career

Quesnel joined the French merchant marine and sailed to Pondicherry and Madagascar, travelled in Africa, and the Caribbean.{{Cite Appletons'|wstitle=Quesnel, Joseph|year=1900}} He engaged in the Atlantic slave trade. In 1768, as a second-lieutenant on board the Mesny, he sailed to Cabinda (modern-day Angola) where 514 "Blacks of all ages" were purchased and taken to modern-day Haiti where they were sold, according to French archival sources quoted in a novel about him.{{Cite book|title=Méfiez-vous des poètes|last=Arseneault|first=Michel|publisher=Fidès|year=2012|isbn=978-2-7621-3120-8|location=Montreal|pages=32, 44, 74}} He carried with him his violin and read the works of French playwrights.{{cite book|author=William White|title=Canadiana|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=S10OAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA22|volume=2|year=1890|publisher=Gazette Print Company|page=22}}

In 1779, Quesnel sailed for New York in command of a French warship which was captured by the British.{{cite book|title=The Sonneck Society Bulletin|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wCMKAQAAMAAJ|year=1993|publisher=The Society|page=58}} Quesnel was taken to Halifax, Nova Scotia and allowed to settle in Boucherville, near Montreal, Quebec.{{cite book|title=MusiCanada|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vvZLAAAAYAAJ|volume=17-29|year=1969|publisher=The Centre|page=18}} He married Marie-Josephte Deslandes there and became partners in business with Maurice-Régis Blondeau, his mother-in-law's new husband. He became wealthy by trading in slaves.{{cite book|author=University of Ottawa. Centre de recherche en civilisation canadienne-française|title=Bulletin du Centre de recherche en civilisation canadienne-française, Université d'Ottawa|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ftt5AAAAMAAJ|year=1970|publisher=Centre de recherche en civilisation canadienne-française, Université d'Ottawa.|pages=22, 59}}{{cite book|author=Frank Mackey|title=Done with Slavery: The Black Fact in Montreal, 1760-1840|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fX2F94OiaosC&pg=PA539|date=1 February 2010|publisher=MQUP|isbn=978-0-7735-8311-5|pages=439, 539}}

Quesnel published a number of theatrical works, including Colas et Colinette, which was written in 1788 and first performed in 1790, and Lucas et Cecile;{{cite book|author=Maurice Lemire|title=La vie littéraire au Québec: 1806-1839 : le projet national des Canadiens|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pl5PFE5hHeEC&pg=PA351|year=1991|publisher=Presses Université Laval|isbn=978-2-7637-7282-0|page=351}}{{cite book|title=Opera Canada|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TCoKAQAAMAAJ|volume=9-11|year=1968|publisher=Canadian Opera Association|pages=32, 79}} he also wrote poetry; his best known poem was titled "L'Épître à M. Labadie".{{cite book|author1=Robin Elliott|author2=Gordon E. Smith|title=Music Traditions, Cultures, and Contexts|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rERqCAAAQBAJ&pg=PA230|date=19 April 2010|publisher=Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press|isbn=978-1-55458-199-3|page=230}}

Besides several songs, he composed sacred music for the parish church of Montreal, and some motets, and wrote a short treatise on the dramatic art (1805). He founded and was part of the troupe of Montreal's Théàtre de Societé.{{cite book|author=Daniel Mendoza de Arce|title=Music in North America and the West Indies from the Discovery to 1850: A Historical Survey|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BoYXAQAAIAAJ|year=2006|publisher=Scarecrow Press|isbn=978-0-8108-5252-5|page=119}}{{cite book|author=Guy Beaulne|title=Le Théâtre canadien-français: évolution, témoignages, bibliographie|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9F5cAAAAMAAJ|year=1976|publisher=Fides|isbn=978-0-7755-0583-2|pages=62–63}}

He died of pleurisy at Montreal in 1809 several months after he had dived into the Saint Lawrence River to save a drowning child.Contemporary Canadian Composers ed. by Keith MacMillan and John Beckwith. Toronto : Oxford University Press, 1975

Quesnel was the subject of the comic opera Le Père des amours, written by Eugène Lapierre in 1942.

Family

Quesnel's son Jules Maurice Quesnel travelled with Simon Fraser on his journey to the Pacific Ocean; the town of Quesnel, British Columbia is named for him. Another son Frédéric-Auguste became a lawyer and politician; his daughter Mélanie married lawyer Côme-Séraphin Cherrier.

Works

Colas et Colinette, a vaudeville (1788)
Lucas et Cecile, an operetta
L'Anglomanie, a comedy in verse{{cite book|author=Littérature canadienne|title=Le répertoire national ou recueil de littérature canadienne, compilé et publ. par J. Huston|url=https://archive.org/details/lerpertoirenati01canagoog|year=1848|pages=[https://archive.org/details/lerpertoirenati01canagoog/page/n21 7]–8}}
Les Républicains Français, a comedy in prose, afterward published in Paris
"L'Épître à M. Labadie" – poem

References

External links

[http://www.canadiantheatre.com/dict.pl?term=Quesnel%2C%20Joseph Canadian Theatre Encyclopedia]
[http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?&id_nbr=2623 Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online]
[https://web.archive.org/web/20060705083044/http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/index.cfm?PgNm=TCE&Params=U1ARTU0002905 Entry from the Encyclopedia of Music in Canada]
{{in lang|fr}} [http://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.redirect?app=fonandcol&id=99498&lang=eng Fonds Joseph Quesnel (R5990)] at Library and Archives Canada
[http://central.bac-lac.gc.ca/.redirect?app=fonandcol&id=3801656&lang=eng Colas et Colinette ou le Bailli dupé, comédie-vaudeville by Joseph Quesnel. file (R12428)] at Library and Archives Canada. The file contains an annotated copy of the piano-vocal score (65 p.) and a text concerning the reconstruction of the work by Godfrey Ridout.

Category:1746 births

Category:1809 deaths

Category:Canadian poets in French

Category:Canadian classical composers

Category:Canadian male classical composers

Category:Canadian opera composers

Category:18th-century Canadian dramatists and playwrights

Category:18th-century classical composers

Category:18th-century male musicians

Category:19th-century Canadian dramatists and playwrights

Category:19th-century classical composers

Category:Canadian dramatists and playwrights in French