Manila Symphony Orchestra champions Filipino music in 90th anniversary concert

Featuring:

Gabriel Paguirigan, piano

Manila Symphony Orchestra

Arturo Molina, conductor

Programme:

Alexander Lippay

     Variations on the Philippine National Hymn

Rodolfo Cornejo

     Philippine Rhapsody No. 2

Antonino Buenaventura

     Symphony in C

Encore:

Antonino Buenaventura

     Mindanao Sketches A Village Festival Dance

The Manila Symphony Orchestra paid tribute to the Music of the Filipino at the concert that not only capped their 2015-2016 Season but also celebrated the orchestra’s 90^th anniversary. Led by principal conductor/music director Arturo Molina, the MSO performed at the Abelardo Hall Auditorium in UP Diliman rarely heard pieces by Alexander Lippay, Rodolfo Cornejo, and Antonino Buenaventura.

To open the concert, the MSO paid homage to their roots by performing Variations on the Philippine National Hymn, composed by the orchestra’s founder, Dr. Alexander Lippay.  The main theme of this piece comprised only of the first two thirds of the Philippine National Anthem. The variations that followed suit had the theme passed on to various instruments in a call and response fashion, dissonant figurations accompanied the melody, tonalities shifted to minor, time signature switched to triple meter, and even the melody inverted.

As the piece went on, I was expecting that the final third would be heard at last during the finale. But it wasn’t so. I don’t know if this was a deliberate omission by Lippay’s part in order not to break any law concerning the usage of the Philippine National Anthem during his time.

After looking back to the past, the second piece, Philippine Rhapsody No. 2 by Rodolfo Cornejo, looked towards the future with Gabriel Paguirigan, a young pianist who has won numerous competitions including the most recent NAMCYA. The single movement piece featured passages from popular Filipino folk tunes that. The work didn’t fully explore the full range of heights and depths that one could make of folk tunes. Nonetheless, the work is labelled as a rhapsody so I shouldn’t expect the grandeur and the contrasts of say, a concerto. Gabriel performed with the command that made him the First Prize winner of the inaugural Henrietta S. Tayengco-Limjoco Piano Concerto Competition just a week before this concert.

Antonino Buenaventura's Symphony in C made up the second half of the concert. This symphony was made in the typical western form and structure but was steeped in folk/national idiom. The sprinkling of mordents throughout the piece gave the music a very Asian/Filipino feel. For an encore, another Buenaventura piece, the second part A Village Festival Dance from Mindanao Sketches, was performed. The shouting and the clapping make this piece a crowd pleaser and undoubtedly one of the most popular orchestral music by a Filipino composer.

Overall, this evening was for discovering and unearthing music that have gathered dust in the archives/libraries and are itching to be performed on stage. I wish that there were program notes regarding these pieces in the souvenir program so that I would’ve been armed with some background information before hearing them for the first time. I do find it very strange that resources such as recordings and other related literature are almost nonexistent considering that these are Filipino pieces. It should be the other way around but that is not the case in here. And this concert by the MSO is a step towards the goal of having Filipino music at the forefront of the concert scene in the country.

With the concert celebrating the 90^th anniversary of the Manila Symphony Orchestra wrapped up, it’s time to relish the orchestra’s rich history and also look to forward to the next decade as they inch closer towards their centennial.