Concluding Kasilag: MSO Performs Kasilag and Brahms in "East-West"
We conclude our series in commemoration of Lucrecia Kasilag’s passing in 2008, this year marking a decade since. Besides, this commemoration also coincides with her centenary. In commemoration, a lot about Kasilag’s life and contributions were discussed in the previous articles- from her additions to Philippine musical repertoire to her life outside her works to the far reaches of psychological analyses of her life. A music teacher and eventually, the dean of her own alma matter, she soon transcended her institutional horizons and sought efforts in the untapped landscape of Philippine culture.
Her experience of finding no non-Western instruments to represent the Philippines within the International Festival of Folk Dance and Music in Dacca sparked an urgency for Kasilag. Her research and establishment of the Bayanihan Dance Company made known to many the variety of instruments and dances beyond the Western-influenced assortment. In her prior ethnomusicological efforts to search our roots resulting in Bayanihan's debut, she produced works with an eventual local flavor present. Developing a Philippine palette, she colored her compositions distinctly with instruments like the kulintang and other forms of bamboo percussion, her Modernist takes in the harmony and technique in her compositions pushed for an Asian sonority to her pieces.
In light of Lucrecia Kasilag’s works that are Filipino in composition, the Manila Symphony Orchestra held the second program of MSO Rush Hour Concert Series 2018 “East-West: Celebrating the 100th Birth Anniversary of Dr. Lucrecia Kasilag” at Ayala Museum last May 11 at 6:30 PM.
Jeffrey Solares, an educator from University of Santo Tomas’ Conservatory of Music and one under the Manila Symphony Orchestra’s Music Academy as well, introduces the concept of the program “East-West”. He relays the program’s contents being not just pieces of Kasilag, but those of Johannes Brahms as well. Other than the German composer’s birthday being on the 7th of May, he remarks that the rush-hour concert’s choice of compositions demonstrates more than a mere faceoff between the East and West. Brahms’s well known composition, his Hungarian Dance no. 5, is premised in that, as stated by Solares, Hungarian music was at the time, exotic, though our ears may simply believe it to be Western sounding enough. With Arturo Molina as the conductor, he perks up our familiar ears with Brahms’s well known piece.
After Brahms, Solares remarks that what comes next would be a lot different, and a lot more exotic. Kasilag’s repertoire opens with her Violin Concerto no. 1, with Gina Medina Perez as the solo violinist. Pentatonic melodies and harmonies of fifths and fourths occupy the piece's harmony and melody, but not in the manner with which the West would caricature Asia. Throughout the violin concerto, with Perez’s virtuosic control of the movements, it is not merely overtly oriental in its taste, but one almost ambiguously Western and Eastern. The distant jumps successive in the melody provide an arousing yet distant transcendence for listeners. Medina’s highlight in the evening concert appears in the solo where she ventures through slides and violin plucking, leaving the audience awed with dramatic reverberations of her melody in the silence of the orchestra.
Later on, the audience witnesses the best of Kasilag and Brahms once more played by known Filipina pianist Ingrid Sala Santamaria with the MSO. Kasilag’s award winning Divertissement for Piano and Orchestra provides a more authoritative and compelling sound compared to her earlier composition. Kasilag’s use of rhythms is more prevalent in the piece, as Santamaria demonstrates with virtuosic ease the complex pulse of Kasilag’s almost percussive demands on the piano. In contrast, she delivers Brahms’s Piano Concerto no. 2 splendidly and in full synchronicity with the orchestra; and she brings about the longing passion of its third movement and leaps back to the whimsicality of the fourth movement.
Lastly, Manila Symphony Orchestra demonstrates Philippine Scenes by Lucrecia Kasilag with full success of depicting the characteristic movements. Shown to the audience on screen are three images as well- those relating to the three movements. The first scene is the noble countryside with lush in its coexistence with nature, played in a very supple manner by the orchestra. The second scene portrays a moving lullaby that provides the audience with an opaque texture which sometimes delves into ambiguous harmonies that penetrate into the audience’s ears - a unique, yet airy benevolence that may be reminiscent to the purity of love in a mother’s lullaby to her child.
The third scene of Kasilag's Philippine Scenes demonstrates the theme of the concert of “East-West” the best. The piece begins with calls on the kulintang and agung and an Asian pentatonic melody, but moves to a later contrasting melody after. Giving the audience a jumpy, almost Western sound to its depiction of a fiesta, it uses an explicitly Western scale in its melody afterwards. The said melody would then repeatedly harken itself like a jolly Spanish-influenced folk song of the Christian lowland Filipinos. In contrast, the agung and kulintang derived from the Muslim dominating areas of the Philippine south pepper the rhythm. This provides listeners with a unique mix of influences Spanish and native. Ultimately, these blends are punctuated by a literal clamor amongst the choral section with chatter and shouts and occasional "Ay, ay!". In this last scene, Kasilag demonstrates her characteristic fusion of East and West: that is, the indigenous and colonial blend into a brew of impressions of the excitement and commotion of a general nationwide Filipino festivity. Manila Symphony Orchestra ends with where we began, another of Brahm’s known pieces, his Hungarian Dance no. 6, grounding the audience with another familiar tune to end the concert.
"Tinikling" by Fernando Amorsolo
The Manila Symphony Orchestra recently launched its season concert series for 2018-2019 dubbed Year of the Titans. Now on its 92nd year, the MSO - one of the oldest orchestras in Asia - celebrates its commitment to bringing audiences classical music in a fresh, spirited, and entertaining way. This year, the MSO highlights the year with significant classical works, innovations on well-known pieces, and even rock music performed with the orchestra’s signature symphonic flair. In their upcoming concert, The Color of Music, MSO will be performing Wagner’s Tristan, Isolde and Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, and Dvorak's Cello Concerto, with famed cellist Claus Kanngiesser. Be sure to catch the first upcoming concert of the series on June 3, 2018, Sunday, 6:00 PM at the Theatre at Solaire!
Image Sources:
Poster of "East-West" taken from: http://www.ayalamuseum.org/2018/04/30/rush-hour-concerts-east-west-celebrating-the-100th-birth-anniversary-of-dr-lucresia-kasilag-national-artist-for-music/
Photo of Ingrid Sala Santamaria taken from: http://lifestyle.inquirer.net/19499/420-concerts-in-10-years-%E2%80%93-ingrid-sala-santamaria-marks-milestone/
Photo of Gina Medina Perez taken from: http://brooksidebaby.blogspot.com/2015/04/bach-vs-beatles-rematch-and-msos-music.htmlhttp://brooksidebaby.blogspot.com/2015/04/bach-vs-beatles-rematch-and-msos-music.html
Poster of "The Color of Music" taken from Manila Symphony Orchestra Facebook Page.
"Tinikling" by Fernando Amorsolo taken from: http://avrotor.blogspot.com/2015/10/october-is-harvest-time_14.html