CD Review: Georges
Arsenault, collector. Refrains et melodies de
l’Île-du-Prince-Edouard / Acadian Folk Music of Prince Edward
Island. Collection Traditions Acadiennes, vol. 1, CEA-1003. Moncton:
Centre d’études Acadiennes, 2000.
Kenny Goldstein once commented that every
new development in recording technology spawned a fresh wave of
folksong collection and publication. With CD technology drastically
reducing the difficulty and cost of album production, a number of
disks of traditional Atlantic Canadian music have recently appeared:
Fred Redden of Middle Musquodoboit, NS, Newfoundland’s Dorman Ralph,
and most recently, a compilation of Acadian songs and tunes from the
collection of Georges Arsenault. By profession a reporter for
Radio-Canada (the Francophone arm of the CBC), Arsenault has spent
several decades recording and publishing the folklore of Western
Prince Edward Island where he was born and raised. Almost all of the
material on the CD comes from his early fieldwork in the 1970s.
There are 28 tracks on the CD, and most are
quite brief (under a minute and a half). Ballads and songs
predominate, all of them performed a cappella and primarily by solo
singers. There is also a good balance of male and female singers.
Interspersed among the songs are a handful of instrumental tunes,
which do a lot more than just add a little punch in between the
ballads. Delphine Arsenault’s playing of a Scottish reel on the
harmonium is one of those rare gems of a performance that one only
finds on recordings of regional traditions, such as this one. The
liner notes are bilingual and provide some fine insights into the
role of music in the local culture.
Refrains et melodies is a
remarkable companion to Sandy Ives’s recent collection of PEI songs
(which also includes a CD). Ives and Arsenault worked within miles
of each other and, timewise, one picked up almost where the other
left off: Ives took an extended break from his PEI collecting in
1969; Arsenault began in 1971. Inevitably, the two collections are
separated by language, but the thematic parallels are striking,
especially among local songs. Commemorations of tragedies, satires
of current events, and reports of community gatherings figure
strongly in both traditions.
For anyone interesting in traditional song
or in Franco-American culture in the northeast, the CD is highly
recommended. It is available from the Centre d’études acadiennes,
Université de Moncton, Moncton, E1A 3E9, or through their web site:
http://www.umoncton.ca/etudeacadiennes/centre/pub-vend.html.
- Jamie Moreira
