Lucrecia Kasilag: Contributions to the Legacy of a Freedom Fighter
National Artist Tita King
Lucrecia R. Kasilag (August 31, 1918 – August 16, 2008) is one of the Philippines’ most renowned National Artists for Music, who hails all the way from San Fernando, La Union. Tita King, as what she is called by her peers, was a composer who pioneered modernism in Philippine music, having made “more than three hundred compositions in a glorious span of more than five decades” (Hilla, 2004), which helped enrich the country’s already established cultural heritage for music and the arts. She made compositions for songs, piano solos, marches, hymns, chamber music, and orchestra ensembles. A number of her famous compositions include arrangements of Tagalog folk songs like “Chitchirit-sit” (November 12, 1956), “Bahay Kubo” (1957) and “Leron,Leron Sinta” (February 19, 1959), which continue to resonate within the Filipino people,even to this day and age.
At the same time, she also made numerous compositions as the Musical Director for the Bayanihan Dance Company, by involving traditional Philippine instruments, like the dabakan, gandingan, babandil, and agong, in showcasing Philippine folk and ethnic dances on the global stage. As a result of her invaluable contributions, she wasconferred the National Artist Award for Music in 1989, solidifying her position as aniconic figure who helped propel Philippine music further into national consciousness.
Incidental Music for a Resistance Hero
As mentioned earlier, Lucrecia Kasilag made compositions for the orchestra and chamber ensemble. Compositions comprise of music for indigenous Philippine instrumental orchestra, and incidental music. This piece of music is composed to convey a mood that is fitting to a dramatic performance, such as stage plays, film scenes, radio stories, among countless others. In a way, incidental music gives more life and dynamicity to these artistic pieces, despite the fact that the music is not the central subject of the piece, but serves as a form of aesthetic that sets the atmosphere for the spectators of these dramatic performances. This shows the versatile importance of music, as music does not have to become the center of focus, in tandem with other artistic pieces. However, since incidental music acts as an aesthetic to another subject, it “makes little impression on public taste,” which limits the composition’s impact to the piece it accompanies.
One of her 35 compositions for incidental music was a piece for Macario Sakay by Efren M. Yambot on November 1971. Efren M. Yambot was a former faculty member of the Department of English and comparative Literature in the University of the Philippines who wrote the award-winning teleplay, The Assassination of Gen. Antonio Luna. Yambot wrote essays on Filipino heroes and historic events in a regular column for Who Magazine, a sister publication of the Manila Daily Bulletin, in the early 1980s. He authored a number of historical plays, including: Bintao: Ang Buhay at Kamatayan ni Wenceslao Q. Vinzons, Heneral Paciano Rizal, and Macario Sakay: Kilabot ng Sierra Madre.
Among the early number of the Katipunan under Andres Bonifacio, Macario Sakay (who was 27 at that time) continued the armed struggle together with his two associates Julian Montalan and Lucio de Vega, through their revival of the Katipunan movement in the southern Tagalog area. Determined to liberate the Tagalogs from the shackles of American colonists, he and his crew eluded hundreds of constable and defied the civilian authorities for more than four years. This led the Americans and their Filipino landed elite allies to label them as brigands (Cullinane, 2009). After a surrender agreement was negotiated with Sakay he and his companion de Vega were sentenced to death by hanging in the prison yard at Bilibid on the morning of September 13, 1907.
UPLB | Macario Sakay Cast
The importance of Lucrecia Kasilag’s work in composing incidental music to a historical play centered around one of the most controversial figures during the American Colonial period speaks levels of Macario Sakay’s importance as a national hero and Kasilag’s work as a national artist. Even though her incidental music composition served as a secondary aesthetic enhancing Efren M. Yambot’s play “Macario Sakay”, there is no denying that her composition stood out, in contrast to her other incidental music compositions, which centered around Filipinized Western literary works, such as Rolando Tinio’s adaptations of Spakespeare’s plays, Negosyante ng Venecia (Merchant of Venice, 1976), Paano Man ang Ibig (As You Like It, 1976), and Romeo at Julieta (Romeo and Juliet, 1977).
At the heart of the Philippines’ long and difficult colonial history, Lucrecia Kasilag’s incidental music shed light to a dramatic play portraying a historical figure like Macario Sakay, who continued to stand against the Western imperialists from the United States despite the latter’s vast political control over the Philippines. Kasilag’s composition for Macario Sakay signified a point in history that was neither Eastern nor Western, but distinctly Filipino.
References
Britannica, The Editors of Encyclopaedia. "Incidental Music." Encyclopædia Britannica. December 18, 2014. Accessed April 22, 2018. https://www.britannica.com/art/incidental-music.
Cullinane, Michael. 2009. “Bringing in the Brigands: The Politics of Pacification in the Colonial Philippines, 1902- 1907.” Philippine Studies 57(1): 49-76. Hilla, A. C. (2004). Music in history, history in music. University of Santo Tomas Pub.House, 103.
Kasilag, Lucrecia (2000). My Story: PWU Publishing.The Philippine Star. (2016).
Wenceslao Vinzons, the forgotten hero. [online] Available at: https://www.philstar.com/opinion/2016/12/06/1650770/byGBsL3jdTzjaYKk.99[Accessed 22 Apr. 2018].
Photo of Lucrecia Kasilag taken from: https://peaceababonsite.wordpress.com/2017/10/23/lucrecia-r-kasilag/
Photo of Sakay portrait taken from: google images under public domain.
Photo of Macario Sakay cast taken from: http://lifestyle.inquirer.net/273414/uplb-play-pays-tribute-macario-sakay/
photo of the cast taken from http://lifestyle.inquirer.net/273414/uplb-play-pays-tribute-macario-sakay/
photo of Sakay portrait is under public domain
photo of Lucrecia Kasilag taken from https://peaceababonsite.wordpress.com/2017/10/23/lucrecia-r-kasilag/