Petits Chanteurs deal to continue
The deal struck years ago to privately educate the singers in the Petits Chanteurs de Mont-Royal has been renewed by Quebec, although this looks more like a snook cocked at the CSDM than any vote in favour of high culture. Also, as has been pointed out by commenters on this blog, despite the CAQ’s insistence on holding the line on gender equality by removing women’s headscarves, the Chanteurs arrangement benefits only boys.
Also, it’s a very British thing to allow boys to access a private education merely because they can sing. Very British.
jeather 09:22 on 2019-09-09 Permalink
They also sing a lot of hymns, as I recall — and if you look at their events, it’s just a bunch of masses. Because as we know, the CAQ isn’t interested in secularism or gender equality, they’re interested in punishing people who are not white (optionally lapsed) Catholic francophones.
Kate 09:49 on 2019-09-09 Permalink
jeather, most western choral music in the classical tradition is masses and hymns. I made a gaffe on the weekend: I have a friend who sings in a high-end amateur choir here, but it’s always masses and always performed in a church. It’s not ritually a mass – there’s no priest and no service – but the music exists in the structure of a mass.
I’ve gone to one performance, but I find the effect is oppressive. So when I was introduced to the choir director at an unrelated event and he asked if I attended the performances I had an attack of honesty and said that after a Catholic upbringing, going to a church to listen to religious music is sort of not on my list of fun outings, even if the works are considered to be major works in the canon of the western classical tradition. Oops.
jeather 09:52 on 2019-09-09 Permalink
I understand WHY they are singing hymns (though I mean masses, at churches, on Sundays or for specific other holidays — check out their calendar of events), I just argue that this is actively not-secular and should be blocked from public schools while other religious things are. (After which I would need to consider, but at the very least not unless there’s an option for girls too.)
Mr.Chinaski 10:02 on 2019-09-09 Permalink
Kate, so if you negate classical music rooted in hymns and masses… do you negate all form of arts related to christianity? All the paintings, sculptures? Michelangelo has no meaning for you anymore? You’ll never visit the Sistine Chapel since it would for you, and I paraphrase, “going to a church to view religious paintings is sort of not on my list of fun outings, even if the works are considered to be major works in the canon of he western classical tradition”
Kate 10:18 on 2019-09-09 Permalink
Mr.Chinaski: in no sense do I negate it. I recognize its greatness, I just know it’s not for me.
Culture is full of quality stuff, but one’s time is limited and one is not obliged to spend it on things one personally finds oppressive. It doesn’t equate to condemning them or writing them off.
jeather 10:26 on 2019-09-09 Permalink
Lots of people have no interest in going to a church to view religious paintings, in fact.
Kate 12:13 on 2019-09-09 Permalink
Right, but if I did a tour of Europe I’m sure I’d see some religious paintings and that wouldn’t bug me, because I wasn’t talking about visuals. I work in a visual business and am always happy to look at any important paintings or sculpture if they happen to be nearby.
It really is just a question of taste, not of condemnation. You can recognize the importance of whole swathes of artistic expression yet admit that you don’t choose to indulge in them.
EmilyG 12:57 on 2019-09-09 Permalink
The thing about it being boys-only is that in the classical music field, a choir of boys’ voices is considered a specific sound, different from the sound of girls’ voices.
jeather 13:26 on 2019-09-09 Permalink
The fact that classical music in western Europe was anti-women does not mean that public schools in Quebec in 2019 need to replicate this bias.
Kate 14:39 on 2019-09-09 Permalink
jeather, I don’t think it’s anti-women, or at least it’s been going on for so long that great artists have made use of the sound, as EmilyG says, of an all-male choir, such that you still need one for certain kinds of music. Boys have a certain power and purity of voice that you don’t get with a mixed choir.
For a long period women were not permitted to sing in church. EmilyG, do you know when this ended? I can’t research right now, but some people cite 1916 as the date it changed.
thomas 19:19 on 2019-09-09 Permalink
The objection to women singing as part of the liturgy was this was viewed as a slippery slope to women becoming priests. Women were finally introduced into choirs to due to the labour shortage of boys and young men caused by the war.
Kate 07:59 on 2019-09-10 Permalink
thomas, that makes sense. I also remembered where I’d read about this: when I was researching the architectural choice made by the parish of St Michael’s. The pope then was Pius X, a cultural conservative, who wanted to see the Catholic church return to Byzantine architecture and strictly all-male choirs doing only Gregorian chant. That’s why that church on St-Viateur was built in that style, the only one like it in the city, and also why things were able to change a little after Pius X died in 1914. War, of course, was probably the main cause, but they were able to change things because there was no longer a pope barring women from singing.
jeather 09:17 on 2019-09-10 Permalink
I mean, if you want to argue that in the 1300s-1800s western european art wasn’t anti-women, good luck? I don’t think the intent now with this really nice option for boys only is necessarily anti-women but the effect is.
Kate 11:21 on 2019-09-10 Permalink
I think the problem here is that while there may have been motivation 50 years ago to launch a religious choir for boys, it would be difficult to muster up the same energy now for a parallel girls’ choir.
jeather 14:11 on 2019-09-10 Permalink
Fine, but then it should no longer exist. Let the current students finish out their educations and move along. Or refashion the entire school to be co-ed.