The man behind Glenn Gould’s climb
German-born music lover escaped Hitler to become the heart of the TSO
Like so many great Canadians, Walter Homburger was an immigrant.
He was born in Karlsruhe, Germany, in 1924.
His family whisked him away to safety in England after the rise of Adolf Hitler. He arrived in Canada in 1940.
Homburger, who died July 25 at the age of 95, had grown up in a family that loved music, but he didn’t play an instrument.
Instead, he devoted his life to connecting artists and audiences, first as the founder of the International Artists Concert Agency when he was only 23 and later as managing director of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.
Homburger had been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease for several years.
To people of a certain age, the “Great Gathering” gala concert organized in 1987 by the TSO for Homburger’s retirement remains one of the great events in Toronto’s musical history. The concert was broadcast from coast to coast by the CBC.
“He was the inspired leader of the Toronto Symphony for a very long and vital chapter in its history, overseeing its development as an orchestra of international stature but, more significantly, ensuring its place in the hearts of Torontonians as the pride of the city,” said Sir Andrew Davis, the TSO’s conductor laureate.
“The fact that the greatest stars of the classical music firmament appeared regularly (and eagerly!) with the orchestra speaks volumes for the respect and affection he commanded.”
Living and working in an era when concert and artist management was a bit of an old boys club, Homburger deftly steered an independent course and one of his biggest assets was an ear for young talent.
In spite of being busy with the big-name artists he brought in from the United States and Europe (including Luciano Pavarotti and Duke Ellington) and running the TSO, starting in 1962, Homburger made time to nurture worthy young Canadians.
His first big catch was legendary Toronto pianist Glenn Gould.
Thanks to Homburger, the eccentric Gould was able to get a recording deal with Columbia Records for J.S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations in 1955. Gould was only 22.
At the time, the Goldberg Variations were virtually unknown, yet the album became a bestseller, launching Gould’s career.
At the height of the Cold War, Homburger defied a general unwillingness to collaborate with the Communist Soviet Union.
In 1957, he secured eight concerts for Gould in Moscow and Saint Petersburg (then called Leningrad).
“Ticket sales were terrible,” Homburger told me one afternoon in his comfortable Moore Park living room.
“But at intermission at the first concert in Moscow, people from the audience ran to the public telephones in the lobby. By the time intermission was over, the concert hall was full.” The tour was soon sold out. Homburger also organized and found financing for a tour of China by the TSO in1978, at a time when few Westerners were visiting the country. So engaged was Homburger by great performances, he came out of retirement in 1992 to manage a teen violinist from Brandon, Manitoba: The now internationally revered James Ehnes. Even though he had been close to so many great stars and had to deal with their personal eccentricities and demands, Homburger never gossiped. Instead of saying something bad, he would say nothing — even when pressed by reporters.
He and his wife Emmy continued to regularly attend concerts at Roy Thomson Hall until his health made it impossible five or so years ago.
It was never about money with Homburger. It was about the love of music — and sharing it with as many as possible.