Jean Coulthard (b. Vancouver, 1908 / d. North Vancouver, 2000)

 

First performed: December 6, 1940 in Vancouver

This is the ESO premiere of the piece

 

During the war years, Australian-English composer and pianist Arthur Benjamin began a series in Vancouver modeled on the British “Proms” concerts, giving a number of promising young composers a chance to have works performed. While these concerts did not last beyond the 1941-42 season, they at least gave budding Vancouver composer Jean Coulthard a chance to have her first extant orchestral work performed. It was Canadian Fantasy.

 

While based on French-Canadian folk melodies, Coulthard’s suite was not simply an orchestration. All three “movements” are interconnected, and are made up of variation and development of the main melodic material. The opening movement, Mon doux berger, amounts to really just a brief introductory segment, with a straightforward harmonization of the tune. The subsequent Jesous Ahatonia (also known as the Huron Carol) is given a much more extended fantasia setting, with two variations of the complete melody, plus a developmental section, which concludes with a maestoso climax, of which Coulthard biographer David Gordon Duke writes, “the clear exuberance of the climax and the effective mastery of orchestration mark a point of arrival in Coulthard’s use of orchestral resources.” The final section, C’est la belle Françoise, is also presented in variational development, with a giocoso (“playful”) climax.

 

 

Camille Saint-Saëns (b. Paris, 1835 / d. Algiers, 1921)

 

First performed: December 13, 1868 in Paris

Last ESO performance: January 2000

 

In a vocation that has no lack of early bloomers, Camille Saint-Saëns still stands out. He was picking out piano tunes at the age of two. At five, he played the piano part of a Beethoven violin sonata with a professional violinist. He made his recital debut at age 11, playing a long and difficult program from memory. To music (as if that were not enough), he would add to his list of accomplishments volumes of poetry, plays, an avid scientific curiosity, and a lifelong love of travel and adventure.

 

His Second Piano Concerto was born out of friendship, and intended as a vehicle for entertainment. When Saint-Saëns’ friend Anton Rubinstein announced his intention to visit Paris in 1868, the noted pianist and conductor told Saint-Saëns it was a perfect opportunity for them to perform together. In only 17 days, Saint-Saëns had a new concerto ready for the occasion, for which he performed the solo part, while Rubinstein conducted. “The form of it is new and very happy,” announced Franz Liszt upon hearing it – and it was to Liszt that the work was dedicated.

 

In a very unusual move, the work’s slow movement comes first. The piano opens with a swirling cadenza before the orchestra announces its arrival with two loud chords. Following that, the piano presents the main theme proper of the movement, and it is that theme which dominates, presented more or less as variations, throughout the rest of the movement.

 

The second movement has the earmarks of a scherzo following a slow movement. It is everywhere graceful, delicate, charming – indeed, all adjectives often uses (occasionally pejoratively!) to describe Saint-Saëns himself. The finale is a brisk and vigorous Tarantella – a Neapolitan dance in 6/8 time. Its name, supposedly taken from the energy required to resist the bite of a tarantula, suggests the lively, energetic whirl of the music. A clever second subject, a witty dialog between the piano and the strings, momentarily intrudes on the bracing main material.

 

 

Antonín Dvořák (b. Nelahozeves, Bohemia, 1841 / d. Prague, 1904)

 

First performed: March 25, 1881 in Prague

Last ESO performance: April 1991

 

Antonín Dvořák’s music career proceeded slowly at first, but for someone who was expected to follow the family trade and become a butcher, it’s a good thing for us that his musical talent showed itself at all. By 1880, the nearly 40-year-old composer had begun to gain continent-wide recognition in Europe, thanks in no small part to the efforts of Johannes Brahms, who had introduced his publisher, Simrock, to Dvořák. Having attained some notoriety and financial security, he was finding confidence in his unique compositional voice as well. It was at this time that he composed in D Major Symphony, and while many draw comparisons to the Brahms symphony in the same key, this work perhaps marks the true arrival of the mature, secure composer.

 

The mood of the opening movement is effervescent and headlong. Ideas seem to flit by as if in a hurry to move aside for the next one, without a main, unifying theme to bind them. The Development section is much more sedate; the lightness is there, but in softer tones – woodwinds paired in harmony, quiet horns, with strings providing support and transition. The energy builds inexorably, and the opening thematic material has become a confident, bucolic passage at last. The Recapitulation is marked by a march rhythm bringing us back to the innocence of the opening. Listen for a rising motif in the strings, as it forms the main part of the radiant coda.

 

Woodwinds get first say in the Adagio, but it is the violins which present the haunting melody which dominates this long, slow, beautiful movement. A contrasting, rhythmic secondary subject unsettles the quiet current only slightly. There is, in the middle section, a metrically-paced passage of heightened tension, but the serenity returns. The main section of the Scherzo is a Czech dance called a Furiant – listen for the two beats against three in this triple-metre, whirling dance. The contrasting Trio, introduced by piercing calls in the woodwinds, is a gently eddying respite, getting us ready for the irresistible pull of the Furiant’s return.

 

A call and response between winds and violins draws out the finale’s sweeping vista, which, like the first movement, takes time before it coalesces into the main theme proper – one of grandeur and strength. Dvořák almost seems to rein in the joie de vivre in a few contrasting episodes, but the broad, confident main theme rushes us on to the powerful conclusion.

 

Program Notes © 2010 by D.T. Baker, with thanks to David Gordon Duke and William Bruneau for their generous assistance with Jean Coulthard’s Canadian Fantasy.

 

The 2008/09 season marked Gregory Vajda’s introduction to the Salzburg Festival as assistant conductor to Peter Eötvös. On the orchestra stage, he conducted the Toronto, San Antonio, and Silicon Valley symphonies. In past seasons, he appeared with St. Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Milwaukee Chamber Orchestra, the Calgary Philharmonic, the Winnipeg, Louisville and Omaha symphonies, the National Arts Centre Orchestra in Ottawa, Ensemble Intercontemporain, led the Klangforum Vienna. In addition to conducting, Mr. Vajda is also a clarinetist and composer. He was honoured with the Zoltán Kodály State Scholarship for composers for the year 2000, and the Annie Fischer State Scholarship for music performers in the year 1999. Born in Budapest the son of renowned soprano Veronika Kincses, Gregory Vajda studied composition at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music under Professor Ervin Lukács. He was also a conducting pupil of well-known composer and conductor, Péter Eötvös.

 

Mr. Vajda last appeared with the ESO in October 2008.

 

 

Sought after as a concerto soloist of musical and technical distinction, Ms. Chi is noted for the breadth of her repertoire. While hailed for her interpretations of Mozart, she is also acclaimed for performances of major romantic and twentieth century concertos. Ms. Chi has given memorable recitals in Hamburg, Hanover, Milan, Rome, and Salzburg. She has appeared with the CBC Radio Orchestra in Vancouver, Canada’s National Arts Centre Orchestra, Manitoba Chamber Orchestra, the Neue Philharmonie Westfalen, Toronto Sinfonia, and the Alabama, Calgary, Colorado, Kitchener-Waterloo, Montréal, Ottawa, Philadelphia, Québec, Thunder Bay, Toronto, Vancouver, and Victoria Symphony Orchestras. Katherine Chi gave her debut recital at the age of nine. A year later she was accepted to prestigious Curtis Institute of Music. She continued studies with Russell Sherman and Wha Kyung Byun at the New England Conservatory in Boston, where she received her Master's degree and Graduate and Artist Diplomas. She later studied for two years at the International Piano Foundation in Como, Italy, and at the Hochschule für Musik in Cologne. Other teachers include Seymour Lipkin, Galina Eguirazarova, and Wassily Lobanov. Ms. Chi was a prizewinner at the 1998 Busoni International Piano Competition and was the first Canadian and the first woman to win Canada’s Honens International Piano Competition. Her debut recording, on the Arktos label, features works of Beethoven and Rachmaninoff.