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Wednesday, September 11, 2024
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Destiny El Choclo
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Music Angel Viloldo
Arrangement Maurizio AbeniMonday, September 9, 2024
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Lynda Carter - Rhumba Girl (1981)
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Friday, September 6, 2024
A musical tribute for pianist Nena del Rosario-Villanueva
The first highlight of her Curtis years was winning a piano competition sponsored by the New York Times. That was her Carnegie Hall debut at age 12!
Sep 7, 2024 10:15 PM
By Teo Guerrero
Three years after she passed away in June 2021, pianist Nena de Rosario-Villanueva will be given a special birthday tribute on Sept. 22, at 2 p.m. at the Manila Pianos and at 5:30 p.m. at the Klavierhaus in New York.
Called “Nena: Remembering Nena del Rosario-Villanueva, the tribute” will be highlighted with a special lecture on her life and works by Dr. Alegria Ferrer.
For the Manila Pianos tribute, the featured artists are pianists Danica Mae Antazo and Pauline Aguila, with a special number from Elnora Halili.
The New York artists paying tribute to Villanueva on the same date are pianist Jovianney Emmanuel Cruz, soprano Margarita Gianelli, and pianist Rene Dalandan.
Dr. Ferrer’s lecture will most likely touch on her early musical journey, starting in Iloilo City, which saw her amazing transformation as the country’s first piano prodigy rising to prominence after the Second World War.
She hid with her family in nearby Iloilo mountains during the Second World War, but it seemed she couldn’t part with the piano in between war and peace.
A story was told that, during the war years, her mother, Gertrudis Hautea del Rosario (a student of MSO founder Alexander Lippay and a graduate of the UP Conservatory of Music), had asked for 20 sturdy men to carry the family upright piano to their hiding place, crossing rice fields and going up and down verdant hills.
An intense love affair with the piano while her country was at war made her an easy choice to play during the first Independence Day celebration in 1946. It also resulted in her orchestral debut with the Manila Symphony Orchestra under Herbert Zipper and with the Quezon City Philharmonic under Maestro Ramon Tapales.
It wasn’t long before she became the first Filipina soloist of the famous Seiji Ozawa on his first visit in the country with the NHK Symphony.
When she first met Dr. Zipper, the young Nena could already perform the fiendishly challenging Chopin Etudes and two concertos without score.
Before she left the country for further studies abroad, she studied under Victorina Lobregat and James Milne Charnley.
After a farewell concert at the UST Gymnasium, del Rosario headed for the US, where she was accepted at the famous Curtis Institute of Music at age 11 under the tutelage of the eminent Russian pedagogue Isabelle Vengerova, she attended masterclasses with no less than the legendary Vladimir Horowitz and Abrams Chasin.
The first highlight of her Curtis years was winning a piano competition sponsored by the New York Times. That was her Carnegie Hall debut at age 12!
At age 15, she became finalist in the season’s “Musical Talent in Our Schools” series and returned to Carnegie Hall with the New York Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra under Igor Buketoff.
The competition was sponsored by The New York Times and Station WQXR.
With the onset of the radio in the early ’50s, Del Rosario became the first Filipino pianist to be introduced to mainstream audiences throughout the US. She appeared on CBS Radio no less than seven times starting with her first appearance at age 12.
The program Gateways to Music was broadcast nationwide followed by appearances on Voice of America and The Green Room Series with the CBS Symphony.
When del Rosario returned to the Philippines in the mid-’50s after she acquired an Artist’s Diploma at Curtis, she was the celebrity pianist of the hour.
During her time, the FEU Auditorium was the cultural center. Her last concerts in Manila in the first decade of the new millennium were at the Francisco Santiago Hall and many times at the Cultural Center of the Philippines.
“Nena del Rosario-Villanueva was a gentle and sweet lady. It was an honor to have worked with her and Maestro Oscar Yatco,” recalled Angel Nacino of the Manila Chamber Orchestra (MCO) Foundation, which had a concert series at the Francisco Santiago Hall. “She is a legend! She was one of those I worked with who could play from memory in her senior years. She was one of those who I worked with who could perform in a sparkly low-back gown, too! And with that back, I could see clearly from backstage how her muscles worked together and connected with those powerful hands and fast fingers. She requested me to bring her nine-foot-long piano to our Santiago Hall. How could I say no? Nine men had to carry the piano because our lifter could accommodate only a seven-foot piano.”
When del Rosario passed away in 2021, her brother Mariano del Rosario III could only remember her thus: “She was relentless in the desire and design to further her piano skill sets and went to Paris to continue her studies. A simple yet poignant experience I recall is when she was rehearsing in one of the concert halls, and a custodian checking the building heard her play. He was so taken by her exquisite practice and was so moved by the music during her practice that he gave her access to the hall at any time. He was so impressed. Losing Nena means I’ve lost a friend, a love of my life from childhood. I have lost a sister who would do anything for me or a friend, a kind person who cares for everyone even before caring for herself. A sister proud of her children and their accomplishments, a mother and a grandmother who cared and loved with all her heart.”
For inquiries on the Sept. 22 tribute at the Manila Pianos, call 0917-800-9357.
Edvard Grieg: 6 Poems by Henrik Ibsen
by Georg Predota, Interlude
Leipzig Connection
Edvard Grieg, 1858
As Grieg famously stated, my songs are “written with my life-blood.” His early music clearly reflects his studies in Leipzig, and he only discovered folk music in the mid-1860s. Taking his inspiration from two pioneers of Norwegian folk music, “Grieg was the chosen one, who wooed the princess from the mountain and won half the kingdom.”
Grieg did acknowledge Schumann as his mentor, as the “Poetic conception plays the leading part to such an extent that musical considerations are technically important are subordinated, if not entirely neglected.” Grieg’s ability to write songs is attributed to the influence of his wife Nina, and when they had relationship tensions, he composed no songs at all.
Songs from the Heart
As he wrote to a friend, “I do believe I have more talent for song composition than for any other genre in music. From when does it come then, that the song plays such a prominent role in my output? Quite simply for the reason that I, like other mortals, on one occasion in my life, was brilliant.”
And Grieg continues, “The brilliance was love. I fell in love with a young girl with a wonderful voice and similarly wonderful interpretation. This girl became my wife and life’s partner right to this day. She has been, for me, the only true interpreter of my songs.”
Grieg and Poetry
1907 Poésies by Henrik Ibsen
Grieg was very receptive to all kinds of poetry, even when, on occasions, he selected rather inferior verse. He always composed music to suit the intrinsic melody of the words, whatever the language. A scholar writes, “there is something in the Scandinavian psyche which appears to regard being happy as tempting fate, so a darker feeling is often to be detected behind the seemingly innocuous.”
Writing to a friend, Grieg explains, “For me, it is important when I compose songs, not first and foremost to make music, but above all to give expression to the poet’s innermost intentions. To let the poem reveal itself and to intensify it was my task. If this task is tackled, then the music is also successful. Not otherwise, no matter how celestially beautiful it may be.”
Grieg and Ibsen
Ibsen had been impressed by Grieg’s musical talents from their first meetings in Rome in 1866 and also by the young composer’s perception of literature. The collaboration on Peer Gynt turned out to be a major headache for Grieg, both in terms of composition and eventual performance. Yet, as we know, it became a qualified success.
It is hardly surprising, therefore, that Grieg turned to Ibsen’s poetry for possible song texts. Grieg explained that the “truth wrapped up in rhyme is easier to accept than it is in prose, and it seems that Ibsen was more able to give direct expression to his thoughts in verse than in prose.”
Ibsen Poetry
Henrik Ibsen
Ibsen’s poetry, much revised prior to publication, shows a wide diversity of styles. It ranges from purely elegiac to imagery and expression, songs in verse form, plays, and narrative poetry. And let’s not forget the occasional political verse, such as the poem on Abraham Lincoln’s assassination.
Almost all of Ibsen’s poetry is marked by concentration of content. “He most often uses nouns and verbs with few accompanying adjectives or adverbs. He makes use of contrast and antitheses, and the concentration is not just of ideas, frequently taken to their limits throughout a poem, but it is also to be found in the imagery and vocabulary he chooses.
6 Poems by Ibsen, Op. 25
In 1876, Grieg found Ibsen’s fateful poetry a match for his own state of mind. He had lost both his parents within a short period of time, “each strangely dying a day before an advertised concert, which then had to be cancelled.” In addition, his marriage was going through a rather unsettled period, and Grieg poured his anguish into his music.
This prevailing mood of despair drove Grieg to Ibsen’s verse, and the six poems set in his Op. 25 convey his melancholy in a most inspired way. “The understated rife in the poetry, the restraint of the emotion and the concentration of ideas are all mirrored in the music.”
My thoughts were of her
Every light summer night,
But the road leads to the river
By the dewy alder.
Do you feel a shudder and anguish,
Can you bewitch her lovely senses,
So that into great churches and halls
She will be minded to enter with you.
I commend forth the spirit from the deep;
He led me away from God,
But when I became his master
She became my brother’s bride.
Into great churches and halls
I played myself
And the shuddering and anguish of the falls
Was never far from my mind.
“Minstrels” is based on a familiar Norwegian legend of a musician who is taught great powers of interpretation by a water sprite, only to find himself having to repay the debt with his own happiness. A literary critic wrote, “the poem presents a view of Ibsen as a haunted man, who is always seeking to break through to the light, is often beset by the doubt whether darkness might not, after all, be the natural abode of men.”
Grieg’s setting has been described as one of his finest achievements. There is great vocal simplicity in the opening measures supported by a straightforward accompaniment. As the song modulates, we learn about the minstrel being lured to the river. The central part features recitative-like declamation, with chromatic movements in the inner part of the piano mirroring the development of the story. The Minstrel finally accepts his fate but the unsettled nature of the song also hints at rumours “that Nina Grieg was having an affair with Edvards’ brother John.”
Edvard Grieg’s 6 Poems by Henrik Ibsen, Op. 25 “The Swan”
My white swan
Silent and still,
Neither form nor drill
Gives promise of your voice.
Anxiously protecting
The sprite who sleeps,
Every listening
You glided past.
But the last meeting
When oaths and promises
Were but lies
Then, then it was heard.
In the birth of those tones
You ended your path.
You sang in death;
For you were a swan.
In Norse mythology and literature, and in Celtic writing, the motif of swans linked by a silver chain is “the symbol of divine beings in metamorphosis.” For Ibsen, the swan was a symbol of the soul and “typifies the Norse belief in the dark unknown passions and haunting obsessions above which life must be raised and against which it must be defended.”
The Grieg setting is marked “slowly and restrained,” and there is a great atmosphere of stillness. Grieg presents a very basic harmonic structure, but the accompaniment chords have altered chromatic notes, describing the swan movement. Grieg shows a natural restraint, which he powerfully casts aside in the fortissimo climax. Grieg once conducted the orchestrated version of the song with the Belgian singer Grimaud, “performing wonderfully well with great dramatic accent.” Grieg commented that “No Norwegian would have dared to give such an interpretation because our nature would have to struggle with our national shyness.
I called you my bearer of good tidings;
I called you my star.
You were sent from God.
Good tidings went forth;
A star, a cascade of stars,
That died in the distance.
“Album Verse” is one of the most concise poetic and musical settings. In fact, as it is only twelve measures long, it is Grieg’s shortest art song. Despite this brevity, Grieg still manages to construct a lyrical piece in ABA form. This brevity somehow vails the meaning, as the reader is only aware that a beloved messenger of joy, is no more.
Grieg musically matched this utter despair with a sighing and broken melody in the minor key, with syncopated chords in the right-hand accompaniment. Grieg is once more primarily concerned with declamation and not with the beauty of the vocal line. As the verse has a rather elusive quality, seemingly an episode without a beginning or end, the unexpected lyricism in the left-hand accompaniment does come as a surprise.
Lock, Marie, what I bring
The flower with its white wings.
Floating on the gentle current
Dreamily it swam in the spring.
Will you take it home
And pin it to your bosom, Marie;
Behind its petals hides
A deep and calm wave.
Child, be wary of the current in the brook,
Dangerous it is to dream there!
The water-sprite pretends that he is sleeping;
Lilies play above.
Child, your breast is the current of the stream.
Dangerous it is to dream there!
Lilies play above,
The water-sprite pretends that he is sleeping.
The mood somewhat lightens in the fourth song titled “With a Water Lily.” Yet, below the playfulness in both the poem and music, there is a hint of darker forces, and the symbol of the water-sprite is used once again. The accompaniment seems to make a nod towards Schumann, and the vocal part is doubled in both hands for the entire song. It has been described as “racing off like thoughts ahead of the spoken word, to be brought back to heel by the voice.”
Edvard Grieg’s 6 Poems by Henrik Ibsen, Op. 25
The supernatural water sprite appears in the third stanza of the poem and, in this sense, represents the dangers of love. The music mirrors this danger by plunging from a charming melody into the darker minor mode. The melody is taken down in spiralling chromatic phrases through various transitions, with the music eventually returning to the playful opening. “The song, unlike the poem, ends with a sense of happiness and security.
We accompanied the last guests to the gate;
The night wind took the last farewells.
Tenfold deserted lay harbour and house,
Where, previously, the music had intoxicated me.
It was a feast just before the black night;
She was only a guest and now she is gone.
“Gone” presents a brief and elusive world. The desolation of the house and garden mirrors that of the poet, and it has been suggested that with this concise poem, “Ibsen could rival Heine in conveying vivid impressions with great simplicity.” In only 13 measures, Grieg captures the haunting quality once more in short phrases and in a recitative-like style of declamation.
A Birdsong
On a lovely spring day we walked up and down the avenue;
The forbidden step drew me like a mystery.
And the west wind blew and the sky was blue;
In the limetree a mother-bird sat and sang for her young.
I painted poetic images with playful brushstrokes;
Two brown eyes shone and smiled and listened.
Above us we can hear twittering and merriment;
But we two took a fond farewell and never met again.
And as I wander alone up and down the avenue
I am never left in peace by the little feathered creatures.
Mistress sparrow has been sitting and listening while we innocently walked
And she has written a poem about us and set it to music.
It is in the bird’s mouth; for under the leafy roof
Every beak sings of the bright spring day.
The concluding song conveys a truly playful mood. The poem tells of two lovers meeting under the trees while the birds watch and sing around them. It is reported that Ibsen wrote the poem when he was in love with a sixteen-year-old girl. When they were caught, “Ibsen with heroic timidity apparently ran away.” In Grieg’s setting, this peaceful and cheerful song provides a new spring “after a dark and hard winter.”
In his Six Poems by Henrik Ibsen, Edvard Grieg was clearly not inspired by the poet’s flight of fantasy but rather by the text’s austerity and seriousness. These short, autumnal pictures are written in a highly charged symbolic language, as the text and music relate to how life’s crises can only be overcome with the aid of music.
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