Choral work debut concert highlight
THE Elmer lseler Singers and composer Oskar Morawetz have some laudable things in common. Both are enduring, consummately professional forces in Canadian music, and their work often possesses extraordinary emotional resonance. When the Canada Council for the Arts commissioned
Morawetz to write something commemorating the choir's North York Performing Arts Centre debut in the venue's inaugural season, it seemed like a good idea, and it was. The world premiere of Morawetz's Prayer for Freedom was one of the highlights of the varied and engaging program presented by the Elmer lseler Singers on Sunday night.
Like two of his most famous works, Memorial to Martin Luther King and From the Diary of Anne Frank, the new piece reflects Morawetz's compassion for the victims of social injustice. Prayer for Freedom is based on two anti-slavery poems by the 19th-century black American writer Frances E. W. Harper. Less melodic than much of Morawetz's
output, the a capella composition has a thorny, sinewy beauty that is reminiscent of the music of the Second Viennese School. Handling the text with characteristic sensitivity, the composer reiterates key phrases among the various vocal parts, creating a dramatic echo effect. The work received an intense and eloquent performance from the Elmer Iseler Singers, who brought a quiet majesty to the final lines, "All that my yearning spirit craves,
/ Is - 'Bury me not in a land of slaves!' "
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