Description

Quebec’s Gaspé landscape inspired Canadian composer Claude Champagne to write his Symphonie gaspésienne, a rare Canadian work now available with the Orchestre symphonique de Laval, conducted by Alain Trudel. This recording also includes pieces by Béla Bartók (Dance Suite, Sz. 77), Zoltán Kodály (Dances of Galánta), and André Prévost (Célébration).

Following a trip to Gaspé in 1944, Champagne composed Gaspésia, a “symphonic portrait” of the region. Revised the following year, the work was retitled as Symphonie gaspésienne. This work occupies an important place in the history of Canadian music as one of the first pieces of its kind.

The Suite of Dances, Sz. 77 (Táncszvit) was composed and premiered by Bartók in 1923 to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of Budapest, the result of the union of the two cities of Buda and Pest and the district of Óbuda.

In 1933, to mark the 80th anniversary of the Budapest Philharmonic Society, Kodály composed the Galánta Dances (Galántai táncok). These dances are linked to the composer’s childhood memories of the gypsy music ensembles he had heard in Galánta.

Composed in 1966 for the Charlottetown Festival (Prince Edward Island), Célébration by André Prévost was premiered there the same year by the Halifax Symphony Orchestra. The work was part of the many festivities surrounding the centenary of Canadian Confederation, celebrated in 1967.