The real Concert Queen

Just days before she suffered heart failure, 97-year-old Blanca Castillo Dinglasan told me over the phone she was in a flurry of daily rehearsals for a joint concert sometime in December with the internationally-acclaimed pianist Raul Sunico. Speaking in her strong and firm voice, she sounded so indestructible, I teased her about performing in public at age 100.

Why not? After all, the Guinness Book of World Records lists a woman recitalist at age 101. For her part, Tita Blanquita at age 95 gave a concert at St. Cecilia’s Hall on Sept. 29, 2000. Grieg’s Concerto in A Minor (first movement) ended her program that night with Raul on a second piano.

Before her, no music graduate half Tita Blanquita’s age could have matched her feat–at 84, she interpreted at the historic Met Theater–venue of pre-war symphonic concerts–two Chopin Nocturnes, Beethoven’s Pathetigue, Moszowsky’s Tarantelle, Albeniz’s El Puerto, Debussy’s Golliwogg’s Cake Walk and Doctor Gradus ad Panassum. Mind you, all these sans score!

As in that tour de force, music always figured dramatically in Tita Blanquita’s life. During the Japanese Occupation, a young, music-loving army officer, fascinated with the strains of the piano emanating from the Dinglasan residence just across DLSU on Taft, politely asked if he could come in. Henceforth, he became a regular visitor, asking nothing except the pleasure of listening to Tita Blanquita. Her husband, the brilliant Judge Rafael Dinglasan, offered no objections. Volumes might be written on the profound gratitude of that Japanese officer because only the Dinglasan house in the vicinity was spared from fire and destruction.

Shortly after Liberation, the Dinglasans’ only child, Francisco Jose ("Paping"), died of peritonitis, the sudden shock turning Tita Blanquita’s hair totally grey overnight. Another son, Adolfo Rafael ("Pompoy"), was to be born years later, and it took a while before Tita Blanquita could bring herself to open the lid of her piano again.

On May 14, 1982, a second tragedy struck: Tita Blanquita’s husband of 54 years died in his family’s estate in Capiz. Completely shattered, she felt then that the piano lid would be closed "forever."

How well she remembered Rafael as the impetuous suitor who, bred in the old school, had formally called upon her father Don Pepe Castillo, a rice hacendero of Rosales, Pangasinan, to ask for her hand in marriage. Blanquita said "yes" but her music had to come first–she would marry him only after obtaining her teacher’s diploma and bachelor’s degree in music under the tutelage of Sr. Baptista Battig, and after giving the required graduation recital at St. Cecilia’s Hall where she would interpret in 1928, Moszowsky’s Concerto in E Major with the Philippine Constabulary Band under the baton of Colonel Fresnido. (Apropos, when I visited Tita Blanquita in 1994, she played for me long passages of that same concerto she had learned 66 years ago!)

After graduation, a high point in her life in the early ’30s was participating in the annual now traditional faculty concerts honoring St. Cecilia, patroness of music. In four concerts, she rendered, respectively, Etudes by Rubinstein, all of Brahms’ waltzes, Schumann’s Faschineswank and Liszt’s Orage from his Transcendental Etudes. She would come onstage serenely, perform just as serenely while many of her associates backstage, nervous beyond words, would hold hot water bottles in their ice-cold hands.

What a contrast was Tita Blanquita’s musical activity (combined them with teaching), to her long "hibernation" following her husband’s death. Privately, she revealed how close she was to madness without her music. In 1986, like a deus ex machina in a drama, an invitation to accompany a violinist in recital momentarily lured her out of voluntary retirement. Until then, she hadn’t appeared in public in 41 years!

It was on this occasion that Raul took notice of Tita Blanquita, already in her eighties. Astonished at her still-agile, flexible fingers and spirited performance, he spurred her on to more challenging engagements. She then rehearsed Chopin’s Polonaise and Ballade No. 3 for a Three Generations concert featuring SSC piano graduates.

"Your performance will certainly be a hit and the evening’s highlight! Show the younger generation that we can play much better!" wrote Raul to the older pianist. I distinctly remember that she was the only one in her group who had played without a score. Further, despite the prolonged insistent applause, she refused to take a curtain call or give an encore.

But more significantly, that inspiring note Raul had sent Tita Blanquita sealed a unique, enduring friendship–with Raul’s impetus, Tita Blanquita’s new life in music had begun. Quickly, she came to regard Raul as her second son. Inspired to scale greater heights, she gave a concert at the Met (already mentioned), thus prompting the awed, "paternal" Raul to write: "More power to you! Let this concert be only the beginning of realizing your own potential and always striving for constant improvement. Always put life into the music, as you put music into your life!"

Then came a duo concert by Tita Blanquita and Raul himself in 1990 at the Puerta Real Gardens in the Walled City, and though they had rehearsed only once the audience resoundingly applauded Moszowsky’s Bolero No. 5 and Dvorak’s Slavonic Dance No. 10.

With Raul’s sustained encouragement, Tita Blanquita made up for lost time reviewing and playing pieces, in her wide repertoire, proving, at her age, an incredible pianist, a legend in her time.

Away from the piano, what was she like? She was highly focused, organized, strong-willed, open-minded. Her candor often startled but her sincerity was never in doubt. Remarkably caring, she sent out 200 Yuletide and Easter cards each year, as also birthday greetings to a select number. Few responded. On a chance encounter, a rather embarrassed recipient would say, "I’m sorry I didn’t answer your card." Tita Blanquita would reply, "Oh, that’s all right. I take pleasure in remembering. If my cards stop coming, that means I’m gone."

Her hospitality knew no bounds. Often, someone from SSC would call at the last minute: "May a visiting VIP and other guests drop by at your house this morning?" At exactly noon, they would be sitting down to a sumptuous gourmet lunch prepared by the excellent chef herself, Tita Blanquita. As three-time president of the SSC Alumnae Association, she spared no time, no effort, no money for the cause of music.

Her 1990 PAX award, the highest SSC confers to an alumna, eloquently describes her as "the valiant woman of the gospels who is far beyond the price of gold."

She was a martinet to Pompoy and his wife, the former Marilen Ysmael, and to her grandchildren Rafael, Roan and Bianca, yet how they adored her! In this regard, Dean Sr. Mary Placid said during the wake in the SSC Chapel: "We must start the requiem Mass on time or else Tita Blanquita will scold me." Later, Raul played Debussy’s La Plus Que Lente, a favorite of Tita Blanquita, and never was his interpretations more inspired. (He and marimbist Johnny Yu had just visited her the week she died, bringing her a cake. How the gesture touched her, she told me.)

In his response, Pompoy recalled seeing a silver-grey butterfly hovering over his father’s tomb–a sign the deceased was in heaven, Pompoy added. At La Loma cemetery grief deepened as mourners heard a recording of Tita Blanquita’s own version of La Plus Que Lente. As Raul listened, two tiny butterflies appeared over the tomb. Surely, Tita Blanquita must be hearing celestial music now, I mused.