Keywords Violinists

Jehin-Prume and his wife gave numerous concerts in Canada and the USA, including one at the White House in January 1867, and later they appeared in Cuba and Belgium. With the singer Carlotta Patti and the pianist Theodore Ritter they toured Canada and the USA 1869-70, giving 111 concerts in 59 cities. With the fall of the Mexican Empire and the death of Maximilian (1867), and in view of his own marriage, Jehin-Prume decided to settle in Montreal and become a Canadian citizen. He and his wife were to play a leading role in the development of musical life in Montreal.

In the early months of 1871 he gave 'six classical chamber concerts' at the Mechanics' Hall. With colleagues he performed quartets by Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, and Mendelssohn, some overtures, and, on two occasions, Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony. He himself played concertos by Viotti, Mendelssohn, Beethoven, and Vieuxtemps. He became the friend and collaborator of Calixa Lavallée after 1875 and prepared the choir and served as concertmaster of a 58-piece orchestra for 18 memorable performances of Barbier's Jeanne d'Arc with Gounod's incidental music in 1877 featuring his wife in the title role, conducted by Lavallée. He was president of the AMQ 1877-8.

The untimely death of his wife 11 Feb 1881, a few days after giving birth to a child which did not survive, dealt the artist a heavy blow, according to contemporary sources. Nevertheless he was remarried 24 Mar 1882 to Hortense Leduc, a young singer. Following tours in Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and Manitoba he went back to Europe in 1882 with his new wife, for a final tour of Belgium and France.The winter 1883-4 marked the birth of a second son, Gaston, of whom all trace has been lost. In 1885 he returned to Montreal for good, to devote himself mainly to teaching. With several Montreal musicians, however, including his brother Erasme (also a violinist, b Spa 2 Jun 1845, d 1905), who had arrived in Canada in 1888, the violinist and violist Robert Gruenwald, the cellist Jean-Baptiste Dubois, and the pianist Maria Heynberg, he founded in 1892 the Association artistique de Montréal, the first professional chamber music society in Quebec. By its last concert, in May 1896, the association had presented a total of 31 events.

In addition to his many concerts in Quebec with Lavallée, Jehin-Prume in 1877 had participated as concertmaster of the orchestra in the first concert of the Montreal Philharmonic Society and in 1887 had been soloist in the Mendelssohn Concerto with the same society. At the height of the Association artistique's success, Jehin-Prume's health began to fail, and he was forced to reduce his activities. He gave his last public concert 16 May 1896 with Victoria Cartier. He nonetheless continued teaching until his death. Among his pupils were François Boucher, Alfred De Sève, Béatrice La Palme, and Émile Taranto.

Jehin-Prume devoted himself zealously to composition. According to Une Vie d'artiste, whose author is presumed to be his first son, Jules, the list of his 'major' works comprises 88 opus numbers, stretching from 1857 to the year of his death. Many of his works are for violin, including two concertos (Opus 14 and 31), fantasias, polonaises, mazurkas, caprices, studies, a sonata with piano (Opus 64), and cadenzas for concertos by Viotti, Beethoven, and de Bériot. He also wrote songs and ballads for voice and piano, various isolated pieces and transcriptions, some choral works, and an Oratorio dédié à Léon XIII, composed in Nicolet, Que in 1885. Some works were published by Schott, but most remained in manuscript and have not survived. Of the 95 or so works that can be attributed to him, only about 20 are presently available. The National Library of Canada in 1977 acquired five manuscript compositions, four in his own hand. Other copies of his works are available at the BN du Q and at the music library of the University of Montreal (Villeneuve Collection).

The Baker, Riemann, and Thompson dictionaries state that Jehin-Prume was one of the teachers of Eugène Ysaÿe, but the latter's son, Antoine, who was the director of Les Éditions and La Fondation Eugène-Ysaÿe in Brussels, vigorously denied this claim in a letter to Gilles Potvin dated 28 Jan 1971.

Frantz Jehin-Prume was the first musician of international reputation to choose Canada as his country of adoption, and he remains one of the most accomplished artists in the annals of Canadian music. Along with such colleagues as Calixa Lavallée, Dominique Ducharme, Maria Heynberg, R.-O. Pelletier, Guillaume Couture, and Paul Wiallard, he was one of the leaders of Quebec's artistic life. One of his friends was the poet Louis-Honoré Fréchette.

Endowed with a prodigious technique, he also was a musician of solid and refined taste. 'The one possible reproach,' wrote Frédéric Pelletier, 'is that he made concessions to the fashions of the day... But those who knew him intimately - and I am honoured to have been among them - recall how deeply artistic was the soul of this musician and how well he understood the glorious masters of his art'. In An Encyclopedia of the Violin (New York, London 1925; New York 1966), Alberto Bachmann wrote: 'He was endowed with a superb technique and a sweet, pure tone'.

Jehin-Prume's son, Jules (b Montreal 17 Jun 1870, d New York 1947), studied elocution and singing in Europe but then pursued a career in medicine. He was a throat specialist and oculist in Paris and in Montreal. He is the author of a comedy, Si bémol, performed in 1901 at the Monument national, and a drama, Vitrix, premiered in 1902 at the Théâtre national.

Author Jacques-André Houle, Cécile Huot

Bibliography

Sénécal, D.H. 'Quelques mots sur l'album de F. Jehin-Prume,' Revue canadienne, Sep 1865