East versus West: The use of folk music in the last movements of Kasilag’s Millenium String Quartet
If there was something National Artist of Music Lucrecia Kasilag and renowned Father of the String Quartet Franz Joseph Haydn had in common, it would be the derivation of material from folk music that would eventually come to shape their craft. Kasilag had often adapted and taken from the cornucopia of material from the different cultures of the Philippine archipelago, a move that was to further increase national consciousness of culture, expanding people’s lens on what Filipino music is. Haydn’s move was huge as well. The adoption of folk sounds in his classical music proved to be revolutionary for the world of the string quartet, from which Haydn garnered the title of the “Father of the String Quartet.” Given this, we will compare the last movement of Kasilag’s Millenium String Quartet in 3 Movements, as well as the finale of Haydn’s String Quartet Op. 20 No. 4 in D major.
Context of the Quartets
Lucrecia Kasilag’s Millenium String Quartet was composed on the 15th of August, 1999, with its namesake drawing from the incoming millennium year. It was composed for the Alexander String Quartet who was celebrating the 80th anniversary of the Phillipine Women’s University by Helen Marte Bautista. This is the fourth of Kasilag’s string quartets, two of which were for commemoration of the Philippine Women's University (PWU), Kasilag’s alma mater, where she had also taught and was eventually appointed Dean of in the PWU College of Music in Fine Arts in 1953. It was while she was in PWU that she also began becoming involved with the Bayanihan Philippine Dance Company, which she co-founded with Lucrecia Urtula. Urtula and Kasilag pioneering ethnic culture research in dance and music respectively. Currently, Lucrecia Kasilag’s works are stored in PWU, an institution that Kasilag owes a lot to. It is thanks to the pioneering research of the two Lucrecias and everyone else involved in the PWU that much of Philippine cultural consciousness in its folk music was reawakened.
Haydn’s Opus no. 20 string quartets, on the other hand, is nicknamed the “Sun” quartets for the picture of the rising sun on its cover in the early edition. The second string quartet is known for its innovative use of different techniques in composition that strayed from the usual light and clear and dance-able style galant development in the Classical era of music, one that contrasted the prior polyphonic Baroque era. The most notable characteristic of Haydn’s development of the string quartet starting from this opus number is the emphasis on other instruments other than the first violin in terms of voicing, and darker sonorities in minor notes and pioneering rhythms that prove to be beyond danceable. A notoriously syncopated movement of the 4th quartet in this set is the third movement “Minuet ala Zingarese,” or Minuet in gypsy style, a notable use of folk musical influences. It was mentioned by Austrian American musicologist Karl Geringer that such interest in folk music among composers was of a “back to nature” movement that resulted to Jean Jacques Rousseau’s philosophical writings on human nature and its roots.
Ultimately, from a plethora of folk sounds available for Haydn’s palette in this reawakening comes the innovations that changes the string quartet forever. On Kasilag’s part, folk material has already been used in her compositions: in a chance encounter with the composer Zoltan Kodaly in a music camp at Interlochen, Michigan, after sharing some of her works with some influences, she was told: “Dear child, go and research more into your own beautiful folk songs. There is so much you can learn from them as expressions of your beloved people. Through them, you assert your distinct national identity for national unity.”
Analyzing the last movements of Kasilag’s Millenium and Haydn’s Op. 20 no. 4 Quartet
Kasilag’s Millenium String Quartet’s third movement uses a lot of Philippine folk material, material which spans the variety of folk music across the Philippine archipelago. In dedication to the Philippine Women’s University for it’s 80th anniversary, it would have been a natural move to incorporate material specially diverse as it was in her time spent in the latter period of her life with PWU that she began to embark on cultural research. The movement is in Rondo form, utilizing an ABACA structure.
The short introduction delivers a carefree mood using triads, with the cello playing a near- pentatonic bass, giving an open sound akin to the beginning of her Prelude Etnika for guitar. The A section in G major uses a drawn-out and less syncopated version of the Tagalog folk tune Chitchirit-chit, the melody of the folk song rendered in continuous eighth notes on the violins. After repeating the phrase, the B section modulated into C major enters with the first half of the same folk tune, but halfway through the tune the pulse of the theme dissolves and arrives into a dialogue between the two violins. This converses in pentatonic inflections, and sometimes repeated notes, evoking impressions of chants of Cordilleran origin like salidummay, or one of a traditional children’s game with the lightly character of the theme. Eventually, the music returns to the A section in C major with the tune of Chitchirit-chit once more. The scattered nature of the B section creates the illusion of a long unified section.
An equally long section in the Andantino C section delivers a melody of different character, rhythm and mode. In 3/4 time and using C Aeolian mode, this section contains melodies that rise and fall below in the dominant below, akin to the dende-o-dende chants of the Muslims in Lanao. The later triplets no longer evoke something that sounds like a chant, but the patay, the slow mournful middle section of the folk dance Jota Moncadeña. The said folk dance is of Spanish-influence and is unique in its context of funerals for having a middle slow movement. This may be referenced in Kasilag’s Millenium String Quartet’s third movement which likewise contains a contrasting slow, mournful movement in between. Like the early B section, it manages to fuse together two influences with Kasilag’s modally influenced works. Like the Jota Moncadeña which she references, the slow section is followed by a sprightly return to the upbeat and lively manner of the first section, springing back to the tune of chitchirit-chit and pentatonic inflections marking Cordilleran influence.
Haydn’s String Quartet op. 20 no. 4 in D major’s work is not particularly laced in material that becomes the theme like in Kasilag’s derivation of folk material from all over, but is rather specific. In the case of the fourth movement, Prese e Scherzando, the sprightly theme in the beginning is completely original, but one can identify that the dramatic themes that follow within the development of the phrase becomes characteristically different and innovative. Although it begins with flighty attacks on the first and second violin creating a lively and sprightly theme, the theme serves to quickly end until another theme comes in: when the cello and the viola enter in, a short, minor, slightly chromatic theme may have initially surprised listeners in the Esterhazy court who listened to it for the first time. The initial galant style of composition emphasizing on bright moods is veered away with Haydn’s use of darker moods that add drama in the weaving of the melody. The delivery of the melody becomes one that is struck with waves of darkness: the specifically chromatic theme is an influence of gypsy folk music at the time, from which, as mentioned earlier, Haydn had decided to take inspiration from to provide new daring sounds to his composition. Later, the cello, which is usually an instrument that doubles the bass, has a lot more character and emphasis in its passage, the drama that the gypsy-influenced theme allows it to elaborate on.
The form of the movement being in what would eventually come to be the sonata form and the divisive quality of the drama in the exposition prove to create something that is more varied. After the exposition of themes sprightly and dark come about, the development uses the same dramatic and contrasting gypsy-influenced melody to its advantage of further developing the themes with emphasis on cello as the leading instrument at times, toppling the violin-centered style; and eventually, arrives at the recapitulation in a specially different way, known as a “false reprise.” This is a situation where the expected reiteration of the initial exposition is not exactly the same and is appended with or deceptively attached to the development, instead of clearly informing the listeners that the return to the beginning theme has begun. It can be clearly seen that from his use of gypsy influenced themes, Haydn was able to revolutionize the sound of the string quartet, possibly as a reaction to the usual lightly and simplified mood of the string quartets prior to his Op. 20.
Conclusion
As can be seen, Haydn used folk material to his advantage for creating newer sounds that would have later revolutionized composition for the string quartet, and eventually creating a dent in the development of Western music in general. Kasilag’s string quartet, in comparison to Haydn’s string quartet, is quite similar in their use of folk themes and how it becomes a pioneer in music composition at the time, for the actual use of Philippine folk material was by her own research into her cultural origin. Kasilag’s work, filled with musical influences of the Philippine archipelago, creates something that plays with the structure, as well as creates unique themes that play around modes. Kasilag creates a sound that is almost ambiguously related to folk-song but is her own in the unique sonority she fuses together or separates. Playing with modes pentatonic and minor and other folk sounds, Kasilag is able to shape her music to her liking that adds to Philippine musical repertoire matter that is closer to its roots, unlike the usual Romantic era and Late-Romantic influenced music of prior to her.
We can therefore say that both Kasilag and Haydn broke ground for their respective eras. Haydn, in the West that sought for more adventurous grounds in the music originally for the pleasure of the court. Kasilag, who sought to fuse East and West, by fusing diverse influence sin the archipelago Muslim, Spanish, the Animistic North, even the typical songs of childhood, in a sound that truly returns to the repertoire it provides for a return to its roots.
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