New vs old

The sparse audience at St. Cecilia’s Hall seemed to indicate the rather slow progress in the determined effort of PPO conductor-music director Eugene Castillo to make conventional music lovers take to contemporary music. On the other hand, does Castillo merely need more aggressive press announcements of his concerts?

One cannot resist observing, with no malice intended, that there appeared to be more people onstage than off with about a hundred members of a combined choir and the full PPO performing for the final number, Michael Tippett’s masterpiece, the oratorio "A Child of Our Time". Years ago, I had an exclusive interview of Sir Michael during his only visit here, and finally, I found myself actually listening to a work of his.

The paucity of listeners was lamentable because the marvelous oratorio was so contemporary and relevant in theme, so remarkable in its textual content – written by the composer himself – so powerful and stirring in its orchestral and choral execution under a perceptively inspired and authoritative conductor. Further, how moving were the four soloists: soprano Rachelle Gerodias, alto Clarissa Ocampo, tenor Ramon Acoymo and baritone Andrew Fernando!

A Child of Our Time tells of a 14-year old Jewish boy who, as he escapes from the Nazis, reaches Paris while leaving his parents behind in Poland. Wishing to extricate his parents from their misery, the desperate youngster shoots an officer at the German embassy, causing the vengeful Nazis to execute his parents. From the disappearance of the boy, it is to be presumed he, too, has been killed.

The searing text was meticulously and eloquently articulated by the two male soloists, Acoymo and Fernando. A mother’s grief, persecution, oppression, bleakness were all pervading.

The soloists sang in varying degrees of eloquence and acute awareness of textual meaning although, as already mentioned, there was clearer enunciation from tenor and baritone. Gerodias performed in her usual excellent manner. A slight vibrato occasionally crept into Ocampo’s voice but she showed vast improvement since I last heard her, her volume having grown much bigger. Acoymo underscored through both vocal and emotive devices the stressful, tragic happenings in the story; so did Fernando with his booming, expressive voice.

The PPO was highly charged under Castillo. The chorus – there was no mention of a choir master – consisted of the Madrigal Singers, the UE Chorale, the Manila Chamber Singers, the Coros de San Sebastian and Santa Cecilia, with the collective ensemble singing in a smooth, solid, cohesive fashion that conveyed feeling.

The three-part oratorio itself, composed in the tradition of Handel and Bach, had borrowed recognizable formats from Negro spirituals, as the composer himself admitted, these borrowings rendered with zest and spirit by both the choir and the soloists in trios or quartets.

The over-all performance exceeded all expectations and the resounding applause implied that the audience had been closely following the oratorio with considerable interest and appreciation.

The other contemporary piece, Voices and Images by Francisco Feliciano did away with most of the woodwinds and brasses, and pressed into service a marimba. In the program notes, Feliciano explains that his work is dedicated to widowed mothers "who lost their husbands to violence, fighting for freedom in search of peace".

The work is akin to "A Child of Our Time" in its intent to convey persecution, with the composer evoking the brutality of martial rule through vigorous drum beats. There is a mother, likewise, and her lullaby is heard in the opening viola passages which are repeated near the end. The cello and double bass players symbolize, in their vigorous thrusts, the cruelty suffered by the terrified mother.

Feliciano’s piece, original and innovative in its abrupt pauses and orchestral textures, among others, makes skillful and varied use of the strings which are tensile, taut and tense in varyingly long, sustained lines. Voices and images constantly criss-cross in the uniquely descriptive composition.

The program opened with Beethoven’s Overture to his lone opera Fidelio, with Cecinio Ronquillo on the podium. Way back in 1980, during a workshop conducted here by the eminent Sarah Caldwell of the Boston Opera Company, she listened to Ronquillo (then a neophyte) wielding the baton over the first movement of a Brahms symphony and the aria Mi chiamano Mimi from Puccini’s Boheme. Even then, Caldwell had high praise for Ronquillo’s showing.

In his rendition of Beethoven’s Overture at St. Cecilia’s Hall, his acute sensitivity drew a wide gamut of dynamics and tonal colors which in turn conveyed vivid contrasts in mood that reached compelling climaxes and a truly dramatic ending. Ronquillo’s interpretation, as befitting Beethoven, was both magisterial and majestic.

That Castillo chose to conduct the two avant-garde pieces and Ronquillo the classic one clearly and empathically indicates the preferred idiom of each. That the taste of music lovers will likewise hew to the modern, in keeping with the times, is devoutly to be wished.