Calixa Lavallée and the Construction of a National Anthem

Abstract

Calixa Lavallée's O Canada, composed in 1880, is beloved there as the national anthem, and admired around the world. Little known today, even in his home country, Lavallée enjoyed an international career as a performer and educator, and spent many years as a “popular” musician in the United States before turning exclusively to “classical” music. This article attempts to demonstrate that, contrary to the received view of the anthem as essentially Canadian, Lavallée used his broad experience of European and American music to assemble his “chant national” from a handful of pre-existing works.