Alex Gray Sings Oskar Morawetz
For three years the CBC has been trying to get Canadian baritone
Alex Gray to light in one place long enough to broadcast a recital. When he
returned to Toronto from touring the West with the Canadian Opera Company's
production of The Merry Wives of Windsor, he was nabbed immediately
before he could disappear on the Eastern tour, and will be heard in the
Sunday Morning Recital this week at 10.30 on CBC radio. Gray will sing an all-Oskar Morawetz program with the
distinguished young Canadian composer at the piano.
We asked for some background on the music, and Morawetz told us
a story which demonstrates that it pays a composer to be philosophical, to take
critic' remarks with a grain of salt.
"One of the songs Alex is going to sing has had an interesting
history," he said. "Elegy, I call it, to a poem by a local writer, Anne
Wilkinson. Her mother first drew it to my attention, and suggested I set it to
music. Well, I did, and the first time it was performed a reviewer wrote that
the music was excellent, but he couldn't understand why the composer had chosen
such bad poetry. The next year it was performed again and another critic said he
knew Miss Wilkinson's poems well, and felt that the composer had completely
misunderstood the meaning of this one," Morawetz chuckled. "As a matter of fact
I had taken great pains to picture every word in the music. Well, some time
later I was talking to George Schick, now of the Metropolitan Opera but then
accompanist to the famous soprano Dorothy Maynor, who told me she was looking
for new songs, and asked me to send some along to her.
"I sent eight, including Elegy, and it was the one she
chose. She wrote me that she used it in all her recitals, and that in the last
three or four years she hadn't found a song that had meant as much to her as
mine. I notice that she's still using it, too. She included it in her Town Hall
appearance last year. All this time I had never met her. Then she came to
Toronto for a recital at Eaton Auditorium, so of course I went along. Much to my
delight she sang Elegy and then after the applause she told the audience
how much she liked it but that she had never met its composer. She asked I were
present and would I please stand up. I did, and then she insisted that I come up
on stage."
Morawetz told us, too, that Canadian singer James Milligan sang
it at every audition he performed in Europe - and it was included in the program
that won him the Geneva Competition - and Lois Marshall sings it frequently. In
fact, Morawetz is continually hearing about its performances all over the world.
We understood why these top artists appreciate Elegy when
Alex Gray told us it is a challenging piece, more difficult but more rewarding
than the usual run of songs in the concert repertoire.
[...]
