A Composer Cuts Classes
Alone in a sea of seats, the intense, boyish
man in gray tweed suit smiled nervously as members of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra filed onto the stage at Massey Hall.
Conductor Walter Susskind, rapped the podium, sliced the air with the downbeat and with the first notes of music, the man alone in the ninth row sighed
and relaxed.
Dr. Oskar Morawetz, 42-year-old Toronto composer, was listening to the first performance in rehearsal of his Symphony No.2, the product of nine months labor.
PLAYING HOOKEY
"I'm missing two lectures at the University this morning to be here," he said, grinning, "but I had to hear my music performed. It's strange but the musicians know the work before I do."
Dr. Morawetz will be back in the hall tonight with his wife, concert pianist Ruth Shipman, to hear the symphony performed for the first time in public by the TSO in its subscription series of concerts. The program will be
repeated tomorrow night. Dr. Morawetz started work on his second symphony last May on commission from the TSO through a grant from the Canada Council. Composed mainly last
summer (when he was free of duties on the faculty of music at the University of Toronto and the Royal Conservatory
of Music) it is his 40th composition since arriving in Toronto 20 years ago.
FLED NAZIIS
Dr. Morawetz, a native of Prague, Czechoslovakia, fled to Canada from Paris shortly before its occupation by Nazi troops. His parents, Mr.
and Mrs. R. Morawetz, escaped shortly after with his older brother and now live on
Dewbourne ave. All the rest of his relatives died in German gas chambers.
The symphony was Dr. Morawetz's fourth commision this year. He also produced a string quartet for the CBC and now is at
work on a chamber work - for the Baroque Trio of Montreal and a song cycle to be
performed by Norwegian soprano Kirsten Meyer next July at the Vancouver Festival.
AT BRUSSELS
Another work, a divertimento for strings was performed at the Brussels World Fair, by an orchestra conducted by Dr. Boyd Neel of Toronto.
The Carnival Overture, his first work for orchestra composed at the age of 24, has proved especially popular and has been heard nearly 50 times in the last 15 years. Dr. Morawetz's work has been heard nearly 50 times in the last 15 years. Dr. Morawetz's work has been performed by Canadian soloists Lois Marshall and Dorothy Mayner, Conductors Sir Adrian Boult, Raphael Kubelik and William Steinbeck, and
pianist Glenn Gould has recorded his Fantasy in D minor.
