Pierre Lagacé

Lagacé, Pierre

Pierre(-Minier) Lagacé. Priest, educator, b Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pocatière, Lower Canada (Quebec), 17 Oct 1830, d Quebec City 6 Dec 1884. He was ordained a priest in 1854, taught music 1854-63 at the Collège classique de Sainte-Anne-de-la-Pocatière, and was vicar 1863-5 and 1866-71 at the Roman Catholic Cathedral of Quebec City. He was a founder of the AMQ in 1868 and its president 1872-4. From 1871 until his death he was principal of the École normale Laval.

Lagacé's Les Chants d'Église, harmonisés pour l'orgue suivant les principes de la tonalité grégorienne (Paris 1860) embodied Louis Niedermeyer's theories of plainchant accompaniment, studied during a visit in France. The publication called forth a brief polemic between Ernest Gagnon, siding with Lagacé, and Antoine Dessane. At this time (1860-2) Lagacé wrote several articles on plainchant for Le Courrier du Canada. Lagacé's discourse De la musique, delivered on St Cecilia's Day 1866, was published (Quebec 1866), but his 'Théorie de la musique' and 'Méthode de sténographie musicale' (deposited at the Séminaire de Québec) were not.

Lagacé published some books on elocution: a Traité de prononciation française (Montreal no date) and a Cours de lecture à haute voix (Quebec City 1875).