By Glenn D. Colton – IAWM Journal (2002)
Jean Coulthard (1908-2000) will long be remembered as one of Canada’s greatest composers, a pioneer who paved the way for women in Canadian music.1 Her compositions have been performed and recorded by some of the leading musicians of our time, and she received many awards during a long and distinguished career.2 The piano was central to Coulthard’s life from a very early age. She spent her childhood in the West Coast Canadian city of Vancouver in a stimulating musical environment owing mainly to the influence of her mother, Jean Blake Coulthard (née Robinson) (1882-1933),3 an accomplished singer and pianist credited with introducing the music of Debussy to West Coast Canadian audiences.4 Not surprisingly, Coulthard would later identify Debussy as one of the “hero-gods” of her formative years.5 As a childhood piano student of her mother, young Coulthard quickly developed an affinity for the instrument, inspiring some of her earliest creative efforts—a series of piano pieces based on events in the Coulthard household. As Coulthard later recalled,
I’ve always been asked how I became a composer. Well, I never consciously decided to become one. I think I always was. You see, at the age of seven or eight I used to compose little pieces at the piano all about family events....I remember we acted out all our favourite stories, and in the winter nights we constructed a theatre in our attic. I composed music for these little plays at the piano....6
Coulthard soon undertook more advanced studies with Jan Cherniavsky in Vancouver and later with Kathleen Long during her years at the Royal College of Music in London (1928-30).7 Not surprisingly, works utilizing the piano occupy a substantial portion of Coulthard’s catalogue. She employed the instrument in many chamber and orchestral works, including Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (1963) and Sonata for Two Pianos (1979), and she produced a body of solo piano literature that includes numerous teaching pieces and more than 20 concert works.8 Of the teaching pieces, special mention must be given to the Music of Our Time series (1977-80), an eight-volume set of graded piano pieces by Coulthard and two of her former composition pupils, David Gordon Duke and Joan Hansen.9 Designed to introduce students to 20th-century styles, Music of Our Time is widely regarded as one of the most important sets of pedagogical music produced in Canada. The concert works have attracted the attention of many of the world’s leading pianists, among them John Ogdon, Antonin Kubalek, Robert Silverman, and many others, and have earned the composer numerous honors. Four Etudes (1945), for example, was awarded one of five prizes for music composition distributed that year by the Canadian Authors and Publishers Association, while Sonata No. 1 (1947) earned second place in the 1947 North American Prize for sonata composition, a competition that included 75 composers from Canada, Mexico and the United States.
Coulthard’s mature pianistic style emerged fully in the late 1940s and early 1950s, the period following her studies with Bernard Wagenaar at the Juilliard School of Music. While her teachers included eminent figures such as Aaron Copland, Darius Milhaud, Ralph Vaughan Williams, Béla Bartók and Arnold Schoenberg, it is perhaps Wagenaar, more than any other, who left an indelible impression. As Coulthard later remarked, “He inspired one and opened many vistas....Of the eminent teachers I’ve had I truly believe that no one reached me as deeply as Wagenaar was able to do.”10 Her compositions during this period of study, including the Four Etudes (1945), Sonata No. 1 (1947), and the Variations on BACH (1951), are characterized by experimentation with large-scale forms (most notably sonata and variation forms), bitonality, and a neo-romantic intensity of expression. The Four Etudes, in fact, originated as a series of composition exercises that Coulthard undertook while studying with Wagenaar.11 Following the tradition of Chopin and Liszt, these are no mere technical studies but rather a set of episodic miniatures in which “passionate emotions are condensed into a framework that nearly bursts in its attempts to confine them.”12
Considered within the broader context of Canadian music history, Coulthard’s early piano works played an integral role in the burgeoning expansion of both the number and scope of piano compositions by Canadian composers during the mid-20th century. These years marked the emergence of the oft-mentioned “first generation” of modern Canadian composers, the “buoyant post-WWII generation who felt urged forward towards a cultural nationalism by the development of new artistic ventures; the founding of national societies in the arts; the excitement of new creative directions in music....”13 Many of these composers—among them Coulthard, Violet Archer, John Beckwith, Jean Papineau-Couture, Barbara Pentland and John Weinzweig—had recently returned to Canada following foreign study, while others such as Istvan Anhalt, Otto Joachim, Udo Kasemets, Talivaldis Kenins and Oskar Morawetz emigrated to Canada.14 Consequently, there was a marked increase in the number of highly-skilled, professionally-trained composers working in Canada at this time. The impact of this influx of new ideas was immediate and dramatic. The quantity of Canadian piano works produced in printed score between the years 1941 and 1951, for example, equalled the total number of scores available for the entire century up until that time (1900-40).15 The type of compositions being written, moreover, reflected a progressive shift away from the character pieces that had previously dominated the repertoire, in favor of more extended, sophisticated idioms. In short, the evolving maturity of Coulthard’s pianistic style both corresponded with and contributed to the coming of age of Canadian piano music.
The cultivation of more sophisticated idioms—and Coulthard’s arrival as a mature composer—is well represented in the Sonata No. 1, a well-crafted contribution to the genre that compares favorably to the achievements of her contemporaries, notably the piano sonatas of Aaron Copland (Sonata, 1939-41), Elliott Carter (Sonata, 1946), Roger Sessions (Sonata No. 2, 1946), Pierre Boulez (Sonata No. 1, 1946; Sonata No. 2, 1948) and Ernst Krenek (Sonata No. 3, 1943; Sonata No. 4, 1948). Coulthard’s Sonata No. 1 was premiered by Frances Marr Adaskin, to whom it is dedicated, at the First Symposium of Canadian Music in Vancouver (1950), while the United States premiere took place at Carnegie Hall in 1951 in a performance by Gordon Manley. The sonata’s three well-constructed movements are thoroughly romantic in lyricism and sentiment, with extensive bitonal passages suggestive of the Wagenaar legacy. As Coulthard’s first multi-movement piano composition, the sonata forms an integral component of her first extensive treatment of large-scale genres. The year 1947, in fact, also saw the genesis of sonatas for both cello and oboe, and her first string quartet and symphony followed in close succession.16 As the composer’s own remarks indicate, it is in these works that one begins to witness the emergence of a distinctive Coulthard style: “I felt fully confident of my style about 1947, about the time of my Cello Sonata, or perhaps one work earlier than that, the Two Sonatinas for violin and piano. And from then on I felt quite assured about my direction.”17
A new expressive impulse emerges in Coulthard’s piano works of the late 1950s, 1960s, and early 1970s. The ten Preludes (1954-60), the Aegean Sketches (1961) and the Sketches from the Western Woods (1971) not only build upon the tonal and formal processes initiated in the early period works, but also exhibit a neo-impressionistic quality through the evocation of varied moods and visual imagery, increasingly coloristic sonorities (including extended chord forms, modality and octatonic pitch collections) and the use of descriptive titles. The Sketches from the Western Woods, in fact, bear the subtitle “Three Impressionist Pieces.”18 These tendencies may be at least partly attributed to several underlying currents throughout Coulthard’s creative life which become more visible at this stage in her career: the musical influence of Debussy, Ravel and the French impressionists; the composer’s appreciation of and close personal connection to the visual arts;19 and the recurring presence of the natural environment as a profound and deeply felt inspirational source. Interestingly, Coulthard described the contrasting aspects of her musical style in terms of environmental metaphors: “To develop this imagery, first is the rippling lyrical nature of sunlight glinting on the watered stone of a small brook. The other is more brooding—the depth of one’s being reflected in the deep fiords of our west coast.”20
Aegean Sketches is based upon a series of three contrasting scenes which the composer witnessed during a visit to Greece.21 The work was dedicated to the Greek pianist, Gina Bachauer, who intended to play it at a concert in Athens but was forced to leave her native land due to the military coup of 1967.22 The opening movement, “Valley of the Butterflies,” evokes Coulthard’s impressions of a valley on the island of Rhodes where, during the summer months, butterflies collect to feed on the bark of a particular species of tree. At the sound of a tune or whistle, the butterflies abandon the natural camouflage of the surrounding foliage and ascend into the sky in a brilliant cloud of orange.23 Cast in ternary form with a three-measure lento introduction (suggestive of the initial stillness of the scene), the movement comprises rapid 16th-note passagework, frequent crossing of hands, wide melodic leaps, and cadenza-like flourishes which ascend into the extreme upper register (depicting the ascending cloud of butterflies).24 The second movement, “Wine Dark Sea,” was inspired by a quotation of Homer describing the Mediterranean, and features an abundance of musical gestures suggestive of the sea.25 The final “sketch,” the solemn “Legend (The Palace of Knossos),” was inspired by Coulthard’s visit to the ruins of the palace of Knossos in Crete and “involves a process of mental reconstruction: the composer, as she walked through the ruins, found her imagination rebuilding the palace.”26 This process culminates with a climactic closing section of full-textured fortissimo chords, suggestive of a palace restored from the ruins to its former glory (marked, appropriately, “maestoso”).27
Coulthard’s second set of “sketches,” the virtuosic Sketches from the Western Woods (1970), was inspired by subject matter much closer to home. As an evocation of moods and imagery associated with the British Columbia landscape, the work is the most explicit representation of the “western” impulse in all of Coulthard’s piano works.28 Sketches from the Western Woods was dedicated to John Ogdon as “a souvenir of a happy performance date in Montréal, November 7, 1969.”29 Ogdon premiered the work (October 9, 1971), recorded it for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) (1971), and later performed it again—together with the Aegean Sketches and three of the preludes—in a CBC recital (March 19, 1974).30 The work comprises three contrasting movements—“Revelation in the Forest,” “The Silent Pool” and “Elements”—which are unified by the cyclical recurrence of the germinating opening motive from the first movement.
The inspiration behind the Requiem Piece (1968; revised 1971) was decidedly more personal than descriptive, more emotional than evocative. This work, written to commemorate the death of former Vancouver Symphony cellist Ernst Friedlander in 1966, was first performed by the pianist Marie Friedlander (Ernst Friedlander’s widow) in a 1971 CBC recital.31 A second version for two pianos, composed in the same year, was performed by the duo of Ruth Lomon and Iris Wenglin (Concord, Massachusetts, March 5, 1978; Rhode Island College, March 15, 1978). Cast in modified rondo form (a b a1 c a2, plus coda), Requiem Piece features a central section (c) based upon a quotation from the Bach Cantata No. 58, BWV 3, Ach Gott, wie manches Herzeleid. Coulthard’s borrowing from Bach, occurring at the precise mid-point of Requiem Piece, comprises the opening soprano line (mm. 17-21 of the original cantata) transposed up by a minor second. While Coulthard maintains the precise pitch content of the original cantata—signifying an act of homage to Bach as well as Friedlander—the quoted material is convincingly absorbed into her distinctive idiom via harmonic, rhythmic, metrical and tonal modifications.
In the piano works of the 1980s and 1990s, Coulthard’s stylistic evolution reveals an expanded harmonic vocabulary, increasingly complex tonal planning and an eclectic synthesis of recent developments in 20th-century music. Old forms and genres (such as the sonata and the prelude) are still employed, yet their expressive potential is expanded through devices such as polytonality, aleatory passages, twelve-tone writing and tone clusters (reflecting the influence of recent contemporaries such as Crumb, Penderecki and Xenakis). These eclectic tendencies have resulted in works which, in many respects, may be regarded as the culmination of Coulthard’s pianistic style. These include three short preludes—Nos. 11, 12 and 13 (1986)— and three large-scale works: Sonata No. 2 (1986), Image Astrale (1981) and the companion piece, Image Terrestre (1990).32
Coulthard’s second piano sonata was completed nearly four decades after the first, and nowhere is the passage of time more evident than in the opening dedication: “for my granddaughter Alexa Poulsson.”33 The piece premiered on May 29, 1987 at McGill University in Montréal by the Canadian pianist Roseanne Kydd, and has since been a regular staple in the recitals of Jane Coop.34 Coulthard, in the program notes to one particular performance in Washington, D.C., provided the following description of the sonata:
The second sonata is in the traditional three-movement format. The first movement combines rich, coloured harmonies with a more-or-less traditional Sonata-Allegro design. The poignant slow movement is titled “Threnody,” an elegaic mood often encountered in Jean Coulthard’s music. In contrast, the last movement exploits the virtuoso capabilities of the pianist to the full.35
The opening sonata form movement is indicative of a formal approach that remained relatively unchanged from the early large-scale works of Coulthard’s post-Wagenaar years. The exposition contains four distinct and contrasting theme areas, while the recapitulation is highly modified, most notably via deft harmonic changes that thwart the listener’s expectations by postponing expected points of arrival. Following the mournful simplicity of the “Threnody,” the finale launches into a frenetic theme of dramatico triplets. Reminiscences of themes from the opening movement alternate with varied repetitions of the finale theme, creating a cyclic-based composite ternary structure.
Image Astrale (1981) and the companion piece, Image Terrestre (1990), reveal an eclectic mixture of old and new impulses. In Image Astrale, the musical evocation of imagery associated with the stars develops ideas first expressed in the Sonata for Two Pianos (“Of the Universe”) (1979), with its three movements, “Constellations,” “The Vast Night” and “Cosmic.”36 Image Terrestre, conversely, was inspired by the dichotomy between urban civilization (a new creative stimulus for Coulthard) and nature (an enduring inspirational source throughout the composer’s entire oeuvre).37 Stylistically, these pieces combine tonally-based lyricism and neo-impressionistic textures (traits long associated with Coulthard’s music) with alternative strategies such as the selective use of twelve-tone writing and tone clusters.
Image Astrale was composed on a commission from the Canada Council for the pianist Christine Cyiuto, who premiered the work in a 1982 CBC recital. Since that time, it has received considerable exposure internationally, most notably through performances by Coop and Charles Foreman.38 Coulthard once described the celestial impulse behind the work as follows:
Image Astrale is a dramatic work, written about my thoughts and feelings when I contemplate the stars. The title describes how the heavenly bodies provoke our imagination. There is such an interest in the universe today that I feel we should try to project ourselves into it, one way or another.39
Quartal harmony, extended chord forms, flexible rhythms and rich textures characterize the piece as neo-impressionistic.40 Yet within this framework, twelve-tone themes, tone clusters and chance elements are employed, resulting in a synthesis of styles and techniques. The Ottawa Citizen critic, Jacob Siskind, commenting on the eclecticism of the piece, described it as “an evocation of a myriad of musical styles, all set down with consummate skill.”41 Loosely cast in sonata form, the principal thematic material comprises a series of widely-spaced quartal chords, described by the composer as a representation of the “ultimate serenity of the universe,” and a pointillistic twelve-tone passage used to evoke what Coulthard referred to as “star points”42 (see Example One). The thematic materials are developed to express dramatic contrasts in mood and imagery, in particular the transformation of the opening chordal passage from a gesture of “ultimate serenity” to the climactic moment of the entire piece, described by Coulthard as “the tremendous explosion of the stars.”43
Image Terrestre (1990), Coulthard’s final concert work for solo piano, was dedicated to the pianist Margaret Bruce and premiered by Bernard Doerkson in a 1991 Vancouver Art Gallery recital.44 While Image Astrale conveys the composer’s vision of the stars, Image Terrestre evokes images of planet earth, with contrasting dramatico and cantabile themes illustrating the duality between the frantic pace of modern civilization and the quiet tranquillity of nature.45 In comparison with Image Astrale—a primarily meditative, albeit technically challenging work— Image Terrestre is a virtuosic tour de force, featuring frequent crossing of hands, rapid octave passagework and disjunct melodic motion. Like its companion piece, Image Terrestre follows Coulthard’s flexible approach to sonata form. The principal thematic material comprises two contrasting elements—a series of extended chord forms (marked Attaca. Allegro Dramatico), followed by an arpeggiated theme of alternately rising and falling 16th notes. The richly textured dramatico chords, marked f and characterized by incisive accents, are suggestive of the commotion and turmoil of modern civilization. Coulthard, in an interview, indicated that the piece is intended to suggest images of a busy city, with episodes such as the dramatico introduction evocative of certain aspects of the urban soundscape (the sound of traffic, for example).46
The piano works of Jean Coulthard, products of a lifelong and intimate connection to the instrument, represent important contributions to 20th-century piano repertoire. Her pianistic style is at once idiomatic, technically and interpretively challenging, and in several instances, virtuosic. In this respect, Coulthard’s piano compositions may be viewed as distinct and separate from her contributions in other media, most notably the orchestral works, in which her ability to write idiomatically for various instruments developed gradually and relatively late in life.47 While her notation, neo-classical sense of form and tonal orientation remained largely conventional throughout her career, her style was no more conservative than many of her more widely known male contemporaries, such as Samuel Barber, Benjamin Britten, Aaron Copland, Alberto Ginastera and Dmitri Shostakovich, for whom the composition of tonally-based piano music remained a valid mode of expression. There is, moreover, impeccable craft exhibited in Coulthard’s tonal, formal and thematic treatment, and her later works forge a convincing synthesis of diverse techniques within her own expressive style. Finally, Coulthard’s piano works are prime examples of a compositional aesthetic which remained consistent throughout her life, an aesthetic based upon the principle of music as a communicative and emotionally expressive medium. It is for this reason, perhaps more than any other, that her works have attained a lasting place with audiences and performers worldwide. Coulthard, in a recorded biographical monologue (1982), summarized her philosophy of composition with the following self-described “coda”:
I have written many kinds of musical compositions and in them all my aim is simply to write music that is good. In this great age of scientific development, I feel that human values remain the same and that unless music is able to reach the heart in some way, it loses its compelling power to minister to human welfare. I also think that a composer’s musical language should be instinctive, personal, and natural to him, and not to be forced in any way as to the specific style or technique of the moment. For if one becomes overly involved in the mechanics of one’s musical thought, inspiration is easily lost.48
Considered today, more than two years after the death of Jean Coulthard, those words ring truer than ever as a fitting testament to a musical legacy of beauty and inspiration.
Aegean Sketches (Antonin Kubalek, piano). “Canadian Piano Music.” Melbourne, 1976.
Four Etudes for Piano (Ross Pratt and John Newmark, piano). “Radio Canada International Anthology of Canadian Music.” Vol. 1, 1982.
Image Astrale (Charles Foreman, piano). “Ballade.” Canadian Music Centre CMC-CD 1684, 1991.
Piano Sonata No. 1 (Elaine Keillor, piano). “Views of the Piano Sonata.” Carleton Sound CSCD-1002, 1997.
Piano Sonata No. 1 (John Ogdon, piano). “Radio Canada International Anthology of Canadian Music.” Vol. 1, 1982.
Sketches from the Western Woods (John Ogdon, piano). “Radio Canada International Anthology of Canadian Music.” Vol. 1, 1982.
Sketches from the Western Woods (Margaret Bruce, piano). “Bach to Berkeley...and Beyond.” Independent recording, undated.
Variations on BACH (John Ogdon, piano). “Radio Canada International Anthology of Canadian Music.” Vol. 1, 1982.
1. Coulthard was the only woman listed in the 1952 directory of the newly formed Canadian League of Composers.
2. Coulthard received awards from the London and Helsinki Olympiads (for the Sonata for Oboe and Piano [1947] and Night Wind [1951], respectively); the Australian Broadcasting Commission (for Symphony No. 1 [1950]); and the British Women Musicians’ Society (the Capriani Prize for Music for Midsummer [1971]). In Canada, honors bestowed upon Coulthard include Freeman of the City of Vancouver (1978), the Performing Rights Organization of Canada Composer of the Year (1984), Officer of the Order of Canada (1988) and the Order of British Columbia (1995).
3. Her father, Walter Coulthard (1872-1937), was a physician.
4. See Janice Butler and Bryan N.S. Gooch, “Jean (Blake) (b. Robinson) Coulthard,” Encyclopedia of Music in Canada, 2d ed., eds. Helmut Kallmann, Gilles Potvin and Kenneth Winters (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1992), 319.
5. Jean Coulthard, “Music Is My Whole Life” (recorded monologue), “Radio Canada International Anthology of Canadian Music” 1 (1982).
6. Ibid.
7. During her years in London, Coulthard also studied composition with Ralph Vaughan Williams and theory with R.O. Morris.
8. Coulthard’s concert works for solo piano include the Four Etudes (1945), Sonata No. 1 (1947), Variations on BACH (1951), Preludes 1-10 (1954-60), Aegean Sketches (1961), Requiem Piece (1968), Sketches from the Western Woods (1970), Image Astrale (1981), Sonata No. 2 (1986), Preludes 11-13 (1986) and Image Terrestre (1990).
9. Coulthard lectured in theory and composition at the University of British Columbia from 1947 to 1973. In addition to Duke and Hansen, her accomplished pupils included the composers Michael Conway Baker, Chan Ka-Nin, Jean Ethridge, Sylvia Rickard and Ernst Schneider.
10. Jean Coulthard, Biographical Sketch No. 2 (the second of six unpublished autobiographical studies, ca. 1970-71).
11. In the sketchbook for Etude No. 1 (dated January 22, 1945), instructions (in Wagenaar’s hand writing) are even pencilled into the score. (Jean Coulthard, Sketchbook No. 3, eds. William Bruneau and David Gordon Duke [Vancouver, 1996]).
12. John Gillespie, Five Centuries of Keyboard Music (Belmont, California: Wadsworth Publishing, 1965), 389.
13. John Beckwith, The Canadian Musical Repertoire (Sackville: Centre for Canadian Studies, Mount Allison University, 1993), 9.
14. In a bizarre and unfortunate turn of events, three of the leading women in Canadian music—Coulthard, Archer (1913-2000) and Pentland (1912-2000)—died within five weeks of each other in February and March of 2000. See James Deaville, Claude Kenneson, William Bruneau, Elaine Keillor, Alexandra Munn, Neil R. Hughes, Glenn Colton and John Beckwith, “Colloquy/Débat: Violet Archer, Jean Coulthard, and Barbara Pentland Remembered,” Canadian University Music Review, 20/2 (2000): 1-15. Also see William Bruneau, “Jean Coulthard: An Artist’s Voyages, 1908-2000,” IAWM Journal 6/3 (2000), 23-26.
15. George A. Proctor, Canadian Music of the Twentieth Century (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980), 34-35.
16. Coulthard’s first string quartet was completed in 1948, while the Symphony No. 1 dates from 1950.
17. David Gordon Duke, “A Conversation With Jean Coulthard,” Music Scene 370 (November-December, 1989), 15.
18. These three pieces are as follows: “Revelation in the Forest,” “The Silent Pool” and “Elements.”
19. Coulthard was a close personal acquaintance of the Canadian artists B.C. Binning, Lawren Harris, Mortimer and Molly Lamb, Jack Shadbolt and Fred Varley. Her daughter, Jane Adams (b. 1943), is a successful visual artist, while her husband, Donald Adams (1908-85), was an interior designer. In 1969, Coulthard paid tribute to the artistic and literary achievements of the great Emily Carr (1871-1945) with a setting of texts from Carr’s diaries in The Pines of Emily Carr, for alto voice, narrator, string quartet, piano and timpani. See Glenn D. Colton, “Canadian Composer Jean Coulthard and Artist Emily Carr: Spiritual Encounters With Nature,” IAWM Journal 4/1 (1998), 4-9.
20. Coulthard, “Music Is My Whole Life.”
21. Coulthard also makes explicit reference to the Mediterranean nation in the Two Idylls From Greece (1980), for lyric baritone (or tenor) and piano.
22. The democratic government of Greece was overthrown by a military junta on April 21, 1967. (Vivienne Rowley, “The Solo Piano Music of the Canadian Composer Jean Coulthard,” D.M.A. diss., Boston University, 1973, 58). The opening movement was performed by Marie Friedlander in a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) radio broadcast (October 29, 1967), while performances of the complete set include those by Antonin Kubalek (1967 Melbourne recording), John Ogdon (Queen Elizabeth Playhouse, Vancouver, August 16, 1973; CBC broadcast, March 29, 1974) and Suzanne Chapin (Carleton University, November 27, 1976; Daemon College, December 21, 1976; Art Gallery of Windsor, February 6, 1977).
23. Rowley, 58.
24. The registral placement, a muted dynamic range (ppp < mf), and the persistent use of the marking leggiero conspire to evoke a character of delicacy well suited to the descriptive nature of the musical material.
25. The second measure contains the marking Quasi Barcaruola. Descriptive gestures include the persistence of extended trills in the upper register, rhythmic emphasis on triplet subdivisions and “flowing” 16th-note accompanimental figuration (marked legato).
26. Rowley, 68.
27. The cumulative effect of this passage is reinforced through accentuation, an expanded tonal range and accelerated rhythmic motion in relation to the prior sections.
28. The landscape of Canada’s West Coast was a powerful inspirational source behind several of Coulthard’s works, such as the orchestral piece Kalamalka “Lake of Many Colours” (1973-74) and the Ballade of the West (1983), for piano and orchestra.
29. Jean Coulthard, Sketches from the Western Woods. Facsimile of the original manuscript (Canadian Music Centre, 1970).
30. The set has also been performed by Margaret Bruce in a series of 1984 concerts in Canada and England, and on a cassette recording entitled “From Bach to Berkeley...and Beyond.”
31. Coulthard’s Sonata for Cello and Piano was written for the Friedlanders and had previously been recorded by the couple (Columbia ML 5942). Other notable performances of the Requiem Piece include those by Vivienne Rowley (Red Deer, Alberta, November 1975) and Ruth Kazdan (San Antonio College, May 2, 1983).
32. Editions of the Sonata No. 2, Image Astrale and Image Terrestre have been published by the Avondale Press, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
33. Jean Coulthard, Piano Sonata No. 2. Facsimile of the original manuscript (Canadian Music Centre, 1986).
34. The work was also performed by Glenn Colton in a concert of Canadian music commemorating the visit of composer Harry Somers (1925-99) to Memorial University of Newfoundland (November 25, 1989).
35. Jean Coulthard, program notes to Sonata No. 2 (1986), May 24, 1989. The notes were written for Coop’s performance of the work in the “Arts in the Academy” series at the National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C. (June 10, 1989).
36. In a number of instances, the types of textures and figuration employed in the Sonata for Two Pianos invite direct comparison to Image Astrale, such as the superimposition of extended trill figuration upon pointillistic melodic passages and the selective use of tone clusters. The persistence of this type of writing in both works suggests that the composer viewed such gestures as quasi-programmatic symbols of celestial imagery.
37. Among the many nature-inspired works in Coulthard’s catalogue are the choral work Québec May (1948), the Aegean Sketches, the Ballade of the North (1966) for violin and piano, the Sketches from the Western Woods, Kalamalka “Lake of Many Colours,” Schizen: Three Nature Sketches from Japan (1979) for oboe and piano, the Ballade of the West and the Symphonic Image of the North (1989) for strings.
38. Coop played the piece in a 1987 broadcast on CBC’s “Arts National” and subsequently on a 1988 European tour, including concerts in London, New York, Paris and the Chopin Conservatory of Warsaw. Foreman’s performances of Image Astrale include a concert at Lincoln Center, New York (1984) and a CBC television broadcast in an interview program with the composer (1987). The piece is also included on Foreman’s recording “Ballade” (Canadian Music Centre CMC-CD 1684, 1991). Other performances of Image Astrale include those by Christina Petrowska (in a concert sponsored by Espace Musique, Ottawa’s contemporary music society, October 1988), and Glenn Colton (with Image Terrestre, Lakeland College, Alberta, February 1996).
39. Jean Coulthard, notes to Image Astrale, in “Ballade,” Charles Foreman, piano (Toronto: CMC-CD 1684, 1991).
40. In several instances, the stratification of the music into three distinct textural layers (reminiscent of Debussy) supports this assessment.
41. Jacob Siskind, “Society presents interesting offerings by B.C. composers,” Ottawa Citizen, October 18, 1988, D15.
42. Coulthard, notes to Image Astrale.
43. Ibid. Several factors conspire to effect this transformation, including changes in articulation, dynamics, rhythmic pulse, meter, expressive markings and registral placement.
44. Subsequent performances include those by Connie Shi (Vancouver Playhouse, March 1995) and Glenn Colton (University of Victoria, October 1993; Lakeland College, Alberta, February 1996 (with Image Astrale); Memorial University of Newfoundland, May 1997) (recorded by CBC Radio).
45. Jean Coulthard, in conversation with the author, 1994.
46. Jean Coulthard, in conversation with the author, 1993-95.
47. As David Gordon Duke explains, Coulthard’s mature orchestral style did not emerge until after her orchestration lessons with Gordon Jacob in the mid-1960s. (David Gordon Duke, “The Orchestral Music of Jean Coulthard,” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Victoria, 1993, 226.
48. Coulthard, “Music Is My Whole Life.”
Dr. Glenn Colton is Chair of the Department of Music at Lakehead University, Canada, where he teaches courses in Music History, Canadian Music, Form and Analysis, and Music Criticism. His research areas include Canadian music and 19th- and 20th-century piano music, with a special interest in the music Jean Coulthard and, more recently, the musical traditions of Newfoundland and Labrador. He has contributed articles to a number of professional publications and has edited the first published edition of Coulthard’s Piano Sonata No.2 (Vancouver: Avondale Press, 1997).