The third concert of the current season of the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra, billed as Marimba Orchestra: A Philippine-American Evening, was presented by the CCP in cooperation with the Embassy of the United States of America. The concert featured major works by Filipino composer Angel M. Peña and American composers Paul Creston and George Gershwin.
Peña’s Divertimento for String Orchestra is a musical romp in four movements that fuse the classical form of the divertimento and the idiom of the post-modern, not unlike dressing up a court jester in a spacesuit. The music teases the listener’s ear as much as the eye is captivated by the clown balancing on a high-wire juggling bowling pins and ping-pong balls. The juxtaposition of the tonal and the dissonant mesmerizes the listener with musical tricks, and it all adds up to a musical treat. In all these, the string section of the PPO played as nimbly, light-heartedly and acrobatically as their instruments allowed. Peña, who graced the concert with his presence, ascended the stage to acknowledge the acclaim of the audience.
The centerpiece of the evening was Creston’s Concertino for Marimba and Orchestra, Op. 21, a musical rarity and a vehicle for Fernandez to display her command of the marimba. And display she did with gusto as her mallets traipsed gaily or solemnly up and down the scales through the three movements of the piece, which were conceived in contrasting moods. As such, the opus tests the expressive possibilities of this percussion instrument, which has a mellower sound than the piano.
Although Creston generally adhered to the concerto form, this piece is marked by his personal idiosyncrasies. Syncopated beats, constantly shifting keys, jazzy rhythms, even an Italianate touch in this or that passage, yet they all add up to a unity of vision that cannot fail to sustain attention and please the musical palate. And Fernandez and Maestro Ruggero Barbieri served this delightful dish with relish.
When the audience clamored for an encore, Fernandez silenced all with a heart-wrenching account of Francisco Buencamino Sr.’s My Soul’s Lament that soared above sentiment to the sentimental, demonstrating once again the emotional horizons of the marimba.
The concert concluded with an authoritative account of Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess: Symphonic Picture. This work is a compilation of melodies from arias and duets in the opera, which is about life in Catfish Row, a depressed black community. The opera tells of the love between the cripple Porgy and Bess, a woman of easy virtue, and the socio-economic forces that threaten to break them apart. The symphonic rendition of Clara’s haunting lullaby "Summertime," Porgy’s happy-go-lucky "Oh, I got plenty o’ nuttin," the impassioned duet "Bess, you is my woman now" and Sporting Life’s "It ain’t necessarily so," Maestro Barbieri and the PPO delivered as an orchestral feast much like a culinary concoction from a master chef.
In a pensive mood, I hobbled away from the CCP with a Christmas wish – that composer Angel Peña and legendary marimbist Ernestina Crisologo would be the next National Artists for Music in the coming year.
Also at the CCP Main Theater on a Sunday afternoon, pianist Cristine Coyiuto gave a solo recital sponsored by the Coyiuto Foundation for the benefit of the new Bantay Bata 163 Children’s Village in Norzagaray, Bulacan. Her program included works by Bach-Busoni, Schumann, Chopin and Prokofiev.
The Chaconne in D-minor, Busoni’s transcription of a movement from a Bach violin partita, was not merely a limbering-up exercise as a prelude to a concert as essayed by Coyiuto, but a Baroque masterpiece, each portion embellished with tonal curlicues of increasing complexity, expanding and enriching the texture. The effect could not have been anything less than staggering as the artist conveyed an air of detachment and ease.
If Schumann’s Humoresque, Op.20 were a test of the pianist’s technical skills and power of expression, no doubt Coyiuto passed it with flying colors. A work which is mercurial in its changing moods, it breathes with the spirit of youth which can spring without a by your leave from one end of the emotional spectrum to the other. Coyiuto traversed this musical journey in the romantic composer’s emotional inscape with graceful ease.
In the pieces by Chopin, the Fantasia in F-minor, Op. 49, Berceuse in D-flat, Op. 57 and Barcarolle in F-sharp, Op. 60, the pianist rendered these with appropriate feelings and images. Following the advice of her mentor, the pianist Fou Ts’ong, she played Chopin guided by Chinese calligraphy and paintings – she thought of the music in terms of visual images. Hence, the storms of the Fantasia and the calm in the center, the rocking motion of a cradle in the Berceuse and the glide of a gondola on a Venetian canal in the Barcarolle.
If Coyiuto had a final test, it was Prokofiev’s Sonata No.3 in A-minor, Op. 28. With all the musical instinct, technical brilliance, power of expression that she displayed, was there an iota of doubt that she could pass this with the highest honors? In this last number in her recital, she pulled out all stops as she treated the work with everything in her craft. Demonic and ferocious as the Prokofiev is, did it stand a chance?
But here was the wonder of it all: Even in her fierce moments, her playing was invested at all times with serene dignity, balance, clarity, grace, elegance and restraint. If I were a king, I would dub Cristine Coyiuto the poetess of the piano.
At the CCP Little Theater, the Filipino Artists Series concluded the season with a solo recital by Vienna-based pianist Aima Maria Labra-Makk. Her program included works by Bach-Busoni, Beethoven, Augusto Espino, Liszt and Bartok.
It turned out to be an evening that nobody in the hall had expected – or had experienced before – or would in the future unless if it would involve the same artist. If it was a therapeutic experience, it would be for those who have been benumbed by attendance at too many concerts. At any rate, this event was one of a kind. And the sense of discovering was serendipitous.
Each selection that Labra-Makk served was a tour-de-force, a showstopper that sprang from her belligerent spiritual self. If she had a muse, it had to be Bellona, the Roman goddess of war.
Other pianists might play with silken or velvet fingers; hers were of steel. Her fingers raced up and down the keyboard with incredible speed and precision. The Bach-Busoni Chaconne and Beethoven’s Variations and Fugue in E-flat "Eroica," Op. 35 she tackled with full force like a battering-ram against the walls of a medieval city, the same power she unleashed on Espino’s Recuerdo Variations, an ingenious piece based on the Hiligaynon lament, "Ay, Kalisud."
In the second half of the concert, Labra-Makk displayed the range of her power of expression in the pieces by Liszt: The shimmering light of Au lac de Wallenstadt, the tramping gait of Pastorale, the rippling flow of Au bord d’une source, the fierce thunder of Orage and the sorrowful sound of Valle d’Obermann.
All hell broke loose in the finale, Bartok’s Sonata for Piano. The pianist hammered on the keyboard, pounding in fury on the pedal with her heels like an Amazon in the heat of battle. The effect was absolutely awesome.
The whole house rose to a standing ovation. Aima Maria Labra-Makk deserved nothing less for an unprecedented evening in the concert hall.
At a time when we are besieged by political scandals and threats of terrorist attacks and criminal violence, these evenings in the concert hall serve to remind us of our humanity, of our search for peace and prosperity particularly at a time when we celebrate with joy the natal day of the Prince of Peace.