Play it again, ma’am

After a long absence from the concert stage, pianist-marimbist Ernestina Crisologo-Jose gave a millennium concert for charity at the Philamlife Theater last year. The event was a sentimental one because it was the fulfillment of a daughter’s promise to a dying mother, a wish that the daughter return to the stage and perform again.

This comeback concert triggered tears from some of the audience, since it was a surprise that after such a long time, Crisologo-Jose still had the power to play her chosen instrument with a tender touch and with a solid technique.

That concert was not to be a singular occasion. Recently, Crisologo-Jose performed for her loyal following a program of piano and marimba music at the Santo Cristo del Tesoro Auditorium of Santa Isabel College. She was presented by the College, in cooperation with the Cultural Center of the Philippines, a benefit of the victims of the Mayon Volcano eruptions.

What made the occasion a rare one was the artist’s choice of an exclusive program of compositions by Philippine composers. Prof. Beatriz V. Pablo, national president of the AIC Ladies of Charity, was so moved by the concert that she has asked Crisologo-Jose to repeat the concert for charity this November, an occasion that shouldn’t be missed by music lovers.

Crisologo-Jose was a former child prodigy. Starting her formal piano training at the age of four with the composer Francisco Buencamino, she became the youngest piano graduate in the Philippines, completing her training at the age of 16 under the tutelage of Bernardino Custodio.

She also holds the honor of being the first Filipina to win a four-year scholarship to the famous Juilliard School of Music in New York, studying under renowned piano pedagogues, such as the Russian Olga Samaroff and the British Katherine Bacon.

In her junior year at Juilliard, she was chosen to perform Schumann’s Piano Concerto with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in a concert at Carnegie Hall. With the supervision of her mother and her first piano teacher, Adela Lim Crisologo, she gave recitals in Europe and Asia, while still studying at Juilliard.

Even after marriage, she continued to perform in concerts in Europe and the United States. It was only after an accident involving her hands that she moved on to the marimba, an instrument considered to be of novelty value in the Philippines.

It isn’t surprising that for this concert, Crisologo-Jose should pay homage to Buencamino’s memory by opening and closing her program with his Larawan and Mayon, Fantasia de Concerto.

The folk song theme used in Larawan was easily identified by a young audience of grade school students, who showed their appreciation with spontaneous applause. In her performance, she displayed impeccable note-perfect technique, as well as an incomparable and sensitive interpretation.

She played three more works on the piano, before moving on to the marimba. These were Julio Nakpil’s Recuerdos de Capiz, which is a remembrance to the memory of President Manuel Roxas, Buencamino’s Hibik ng Diwa and his nocturne, Luha, and Dr. Rodolfo Cornejo’s Moslem dance ritual Baley Sin-um Baley.

When it comes to the marimba, Crisologo-Jose is peerless. In bravura passages, she performs vigorously with the strength of a young musician, while her pianissimos are breathless to hear. Only a true artist can interpret such subtle nuances of music.

Of the marimba music she commissioned for her concerts, she performed Rodolfo Cornejo’s arrangements of Antonio Molina’s Hating Gabi and the folk song Leron Leron Sinta, Lucino Sacramento’s Philippine Views, a suite of five Philippine folk songs, Cornejo’s Aking Bituin (Evening Love Song) and Sacramento’s Sa Lilim ng Punong Papaya.

In all the numbers on the marimba, except for Aking Bituin, she accompanied herself with her own recordings on the piano, amplified within the hall. In Aking Bituin, she was accompanied by Sta. Isabel College of Music faculty Venice Tamayo.

During the intermission, the Sta. Isabel Music Guild, directed by Ricardo Mazo, stirringly rendered Ryan Cayabyab’s Musika, assisted by music department chairman Cecile Basilio Roxas on the piano, an added bonus for the audience.

In these times when love of country should be foremost in our hearts, this concert should be presented to a bigger audience. The spontaneous burst of applause at the end of the program is an indication of how beautiful our folk songs, especially when they are beautifully arranged and interpreted. A concert such as this should stir pride in our hearts of our roots, of our simple, humble, innocent unique and proud Philippine heritage.

Ernestina Crisologo-Jose’s example is definitely worthy of emulation.

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The author is a music theorist and is a faculty of Sta. Isabel College and the Philippine Women’s University. She is a board member of the Piano Teachers’ Guild of the Philippines.