How Serge Fiori has uninhibited Quebec music

Still in shock from the disappearance of one of the greats of Quebec music. Therefore, each of us lives a strong emotional charge in its report to harmonium and more generally to man that Serge Fiori was. Consequently,

Posted at 12:00 p.m.

Danick Trottier Full professor of musicology. Therefore, UQAM

The disappearances of the musical environment that have multiplied for two years lead us to become aware of the major role that music plays in how serge fiori uninhibited quebec our lives, like a soundtrack of our individual trajectory, but also of our collective story.

It is all the more important to emphasize this that something unique happened with the arrival of Harmonium in 1973-1974. Meanwhile, Measuring the impact today seems essential to properly locate the artistic legacy of Fiori. For example, If some agree that any artist carries a vision of the world through his art. In addition, the Harmonium leader has clearly distinguished himself from several musicians of his generation through a posture without compromise as well as a risk taking over the possibilities offered by popular music of the 1970s.

The bias of a conceptual rock in French

The rock nebula of the years 1960-1970 is just as cultural revolution as the transformation of the perception of the world. Furthermore, as in fact how serge fiori uninhibited quebec the unique attention which is given to the new formations and icons of the local and international scenes. Meanwhile, It is in the context of this musical effervescence. coupled with the cultural boil that Quebec is experiencing, that Harmonium takes shape, first composed of a trio where we find Michel Normandeau and Louis Valois alongside Fiori.

The stylistic positioning of the formation is first camping in French-speaking folk-rock. but with this difference that the work of the three musicians remains open to all the influences that come from rock of the time. Hence the strong attraction to a genre that attends in the early 1970s: progressive rock. If training like October. Maneige tend towards this genre according to the albums they make, the popularity they encounter with the general public remains mixed.

In the evolution experienced by Harmonium from 1973 how serge fiori uninhibited quebec to 1978. integrating as much instruments such as the flute and the mellotron as by opting for long instrumental beaches, the progressive is popular in Quebec song and knows its hours of glory in French.

This sound halfway between folk-rock. progressive explains why the criticisms of the time draw parallels with English groups like Genesis and Pink Floyd, influences certainly notable in some songs composed by Fiori. However. this is the richness of his work, the sound continues to transform itself by integrating new sounds and new musicians in the collective that became Harmonium from 1975, for example the arrival of Serge Locat and Pierre Daigneault, then of Monique Fauteux.

It is in this judgment that one of the most original postures of Harmonium is found. that Fiori dictated from the beginning of the training: the bias of a rock how serge fiori uninhibited quebec in French as well as the bias of a rock with a conceptual tendency. What to say? The right to dream of major projects in music through an alloy between sound. text, idea, utopia and artistic vision was not fully assumed before the arrival of Harmonium.

Despite the musical revolution brought by Charlebois with a psychedelic sound in French. the publication of Jaune From Ferland as the first concept album, there remained the ultimate step which consisted in making concept albums (therefore welding around a unifying idea) in its own right, in line with the aesthetic, cultural, social and spiritual aspirations of the time. Fiori and his colleagues had the courage to take this step, hence the evocative titles that their three albums depict.

How serge fiori uninhibited quebec

The figure of the musician

The conceptual scope how serge fiori uninhibited quebec of the three Harmonium albums pushes me to recall to what extent Fiori’s work has wanted to be unifying by drawing from one of the allegories of Western art: the idea of ​​the man-orchestra. consequently of the accomplishment of each through an expression which is specific to him according to the instrument he appropriates.

The choice of the name of Harmonium is. in this sense, far from being innocent, because it evokes as much the instrument which bears this name and which was in vogue in the XIX^e century that the idea of ​​gathering to make music.

This is why the figure of the musician constantly returns to the poetic universe of Fiori. namely as a metaphor of the voice that everyone seeks to assert as much as as a metaphor of the community when it comes to speech and how serge fiori uninhibited quebec the links that unite us.

The example par excellence of this reality is the slogan that appears on the eponymous album of 1974: “Harmonium of musicians among many. music for all of us. In other words. there is a musical heritage to assume while affirming the birth of a new voice, but oh so singular in what she has to say and carry as a message. Taking into account this slogan. the man-orchestra which adorns the cover of the 1974 album (engraving attributed to Nicolas II of Larmessin), we are able to understand the uniqueness of the how serge fiori uninhibited quebec artistic proposition of Harmonium: a word to be valued as soon as “we have put someone in the world”, listening to both an individual responsibility and a collective duty.

When we take into account the singular. universal message carried by training, it is possible to put into perspective one of the greatest legacy of Serge Fiori as a musician and composer: a completely uninhibited music from us. In other words, music that saw great when Quebec society needed to see big!

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