Lucrecia Kasilag and the Millennium String Quartet
Lucrecia “King” Roces Kasilag, also known as “the First Lady of Philippine Music,” was born in August 31, 1918, in San Fernando, La Union. She was an administrator, composer, educator, and researcher who garnered the National Artist of the Philippines in 1989. Kasilag studied in the Philippine’s Women University in 1945 wherein she took up composition. It was during this time when she started to perform her own compositions at the school. After which, she taught in the University of the Philippines at the Conservatory of Music for one year and eventually studied in the Eastman School of New York and completed her Bachelor of Music degree in 1949 wherein she studied music theory with Wayne Barlow and Allen Mchose. Thereafter, she pursued a career as a concert pianist. She was supposed to tour internationally but had to withdraw early due to a defect she was born with in one hand. Lucrecia Kasilag pioneered the development of Filipino classical music and established the Bayanihan Philippine Dance Company and Bayanihan Folks Art Center. She was credited for writing over 250 compositions, from opera all the way up to folk music, and was composing music until the day she died. It is said that a good number of her works are difficult to comprehend due to the poor condition of the pieces and a good number of them were never published, which, as a result, led her to be not as well known in Western culture.
One of Lucrecia Kasilag’s compositions is a string quartet specifically named the “Millennium String Quartet.” The string quartet is an ensemble composed of four string instruments (one cellist, two violins and one viola), it is also one of the proliferate kinds of music during the 18th century. There are also some different variations to the string quartet such as the string quintet which was commonly used by Mozart and was composed of five string instruments; namely two violas, two cellos and sometimes a double bass. Other modifications of the string quartet are the string trio (one violin, one viola, and one cello) and the piano quintet (a string quartet with an accompanying piano).
This genre of music was developed by Joseph Haydn to its current form, establishing the genre in the 1700s. Ever since Haydn’s era, the string quartet is considered to be a sign of opulence and often listened to only if you are in the upper echelon of society. Quartet composition reached its peaked during the time of composers such as Ludwig van Beethoven, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Franz Schubert, but its popularity eventually declined during the 19th century due to the movement that veered away from classical forms. However, it was later revived in the 20th century because of the critically acclaimed works of Bela Bartok, Elliot Carter and Dmitri Shostakovich. In the present, string quartet is considered a staple in the classical chamber music genre.
A string quartet is usually composed of a standard structure with four movements: the first movement being the sonata form, then a slower movement for the second in a similar key, the third movement a minuet trio, and finally for the last movement a Rondo / Sonata Rondo form in a tonic key. Quartets are usually named after the composer (Borodin Quartet), first violinist (Takacs Quartet), and location (Budapest Quartet). As such, it can be said that Kasilag’s Millennium String Quartet was most likely composed and written during the start of the millennia sometime during the year 2000.
From the perspective of a non-musician, it is written in the classical style that was popularized during Haydn’s time, and as a result, it contains obvious Western influences in it. Kasilag is well known for her style of blending the eastern and western sound, and this style is seen even in this specific piece, as Filipino folk elements can be seen in the work's melodic properties. It is also written with a homophonic type of texture which means it has a main melody and is supported by one or more backing melodies written in contrasting notes and rhythms. To further simplify, this basically means that it is a blend of different musical lines to create one overall sound. This can be seen in the fact that violin two and the viola share the same pattern in order to make one homogenous sound. For the key, it is written in the major scale. A major scale is a diatonic scale which has a specific sequence of intervals (whole, whole, half, whole, whole, whole, half) and cannot be classified as such if this is not present. A whole is defined as a whole tone meanwhile a half tone stands for a semi-tone.
As a whole, this piece is a testament to the greatness in the composing ability of Lucrecia Roces Kasilag, and through this she is immortalized in her compositions. She never forgets to incorporate the Filipino culture and never hides her identity of being a Filipino.
Bibliography
Major scale. (2018, October 14). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_scale.
Salido, C. (2002). THE PIANO COMPOSITIONAL STYLE OF LUCRECIA ROCES KASILAG. Retrieved December 7, 2018, from https://etd.ohiolink.edu/!etd.send_file? accession=osu1486549482669975&disposition=inline.
String quartet. (2018, November 18). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ String_quartet.