Canadian composer's music commemorates King's death
Oskar Morawetz, a composer and professor of music at the University of
Toronto, was commissioned in 1967 by Russian celloist Mstislav Rostropovitch to
compose a piece of music with a unique orchestration.
It was not until April 4, 1968 - the day Martin Luther King was assassinated
- that Morawetz felt moved to finish his assignment.
Morawetz said Tuesday that his composition, completed in the summer of 1968,
will be broadcast on CBC radio and about 15 stations in the United States to
mark the 10th anniversary of the death of the civil rights leader.
The 20-minute composition, recorded by Radio Canada International in
Montreal, is written for cello, winds and percussion. The cello, played on the
recording by Zara Nelsova, is the only string instrument used.
Morawetz said the orchestration is unusual and sad, ending with funeral march
music which represents the funeral of King in Atlanta, Ga., and the march in
support of striking sanitation workers in Memphis, Tenn., a week before King was
shot.
King was assassinated in Memphis upon his return to organize more support for
the workers.
"I wanted to write a work which would express the dramatic events of the last
day of his life," Morawetz said.
Morawetz, 61, came to Canada from Czechoslovakia after Hitler's troops
occupied the country in 1939. He said his experience in Europe made him more
sensitive to King's fight for civil rights and racial freedom.
"Ever since the persecutions of Hitler, I was always very concerned about
persecutions of anybody."
Morawetz said he was moved by the epitaph that King wanted on his tombstone:
"Free at last, thank God, I'm free at last."
