Two National Artists for Music pass away

Last Easter Sunday, National Artist for Music Lucio San Pedro died in his hometown in Angono, Rizal at the age of 89. San Pedro was the townmate and contemporary of another national artist, Carlos "Botong" Francisco, the greatest muralist our country has produced. This means that the humble town of Angono has produced two national artists in two different arts – music and painting.

Two days later, another National Artist for Music, Levi Celerio, also died at age 91. San Pedro was known as a composer; Celerio as a lyricist. The two often collaborated together. Their most famous joint-work is the classic Sa Ugoy ng Duyan. Celerio is credited with our country’s most popular local Christmas song – Ang Pasko ay Sumapit.

National Artists are supposed to be buried in the Libingan ng mga Bayani, a site reserved for national heroes. But their funerals attracted very little public attention. This is because only very few people know the names of the composers of the songs that they sing. Good music enters our ears with facility and they generally stay in our minds forever. You can actually hear music with just your mind. The best proof of this is that Beethoven composed music when he was already deaf. Ludwig van Beethoven said that music was "the one incorporal entrance into the higher world of knowledge which comprehends mankind but which mankind cannot comprehend." Music is a universal language. It does not have to be translated. It has been called the ideal of all arts because you cannot distinguish the substance from the form or the subject from the expression. But nowadays, it is not the composers or the lyricists that gain renown. It is the performers who merely give their renditions of the musical compositions. And so composers and lyricists have a low or no profile whatsover while the singers, musicians and orchestras achieve fame.

The country did well in giving Lucio San Pedro and Levi Celerio official recognition as National Artists. Nowadays in art, it is not creativity but visibility that attains recognition. And when we say visibility, we mean media exposure. Acting and singing are actually not arts at all. They are just interpretive professions. But the general public does not even have a concept between creative and the interpretive arts. And so true national artists like San Pedro and Celerio die without public adulation, but without them we would not even have our own music and songs.