Of ‘Duetto’ and Terezin
May 9, 2005 | 12:00am
They are the most endangered among endangered species – duo pianists. In fact, in our archipelago, Della Gamboa Besa and Anamaria Gregorio de Guzman are the only ones of their kind as far as I know, unless there are practitioners who follow their craft in private unheard by the public.
Duetto, the recital of Della and Anamaria at the CCP Little Theater placed on display the unique art of these musicians, these twin spirits, whose two pairs of hands pranced over the pianos in a pensive mood, in playful parody, or in a joyous flight of fancy, their notes and chords meeting in consonance and dissonance, in a congruence of tones or in conflict and contrast in accord with the demands of the scores and the composer’s vision.
Introduction et Allegro by M. Ravel was not a 20-finger-limbering-up exercise for the ladies but a heady Burgundian champagne to open a musical feast which they served with the joie de vivre of the Gallic spirit.
An appetizing native ensalada which has the tang and taste of manggang hilaw and bagoong – that’s green mango and fish paste to the uninitiated – is R. Sunico’s Philippine Airs, a concoction of local tunes, folk songs and popular hits arranged by Raul. He squeezed out the saccharine from the all-too familiar ditties and rearranged them in ingenious variations even employing outrageous dissonance for comic parody. Under the garnished garb, the listener can discern, shorn of the sugar, the spice of Bahay Kubo, Ti Ayat Ti Meysa Nga Ubing, Neneng, Leron Leron Sinta, Lagi Kitang Mamahalin and Kalesa.
Just as tangy, if not more, are the tangos of A. Piazzolla, Le Grand Tango, Adios Nonino and Libertango. Were Della and Anamaria up to these dances from the Argentine pampas? With as mucho gusto as the gauchos bareback on their bulls!
Also beating with the Latino pulse is A. Copland’s El Salon Mexico arranged for two pianos by Leonard Bernstein. The gentler, more tuneful sections of the work the ladies handled with ease. However they could muster only the spirit of sangria in fortississimo passages where the full power of tequila with a pinch of salt would have been more appropriate. Is this worth quibbling about when they could project the atmospheric-pictorial vista of the land beyond the Rio Grande most forcefully?
Duetto concluded with a spiritual account by Della and Anamaria of F. Poulenc’s Concerto in D minor for Two Pianos. This opus displayed in full measure the kindred souls of these keyboard artists as they essayed with graceful ease the demands of the concerto, heedful to its changing colors, its kaleidoscopic moods. All in all a masterful reading as light in spirit as white wine from the vineyards of the Auvergne.
Over at the CCP Main Theater, the Embassies of the Czech Republic and of Israel together with the CCP presented Remember Terezin, a concert and art exhibit, in celebration of the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II and the liberation of the concentration camp and Jewish ghetto in Terezin.
The messages of CCP president Nestor O. Jardin, Czech Ambassador Stanislav Slavicky and Israeli Ambassador Yehoshua Sagi defined the significance of the occasion.
Terezin, a town a few miles away from Prague, was the site chosen by the Nazis for a bizarre experiment to deceive the free world.
According to the notes of Milos Pojar, director of the Education and Culture Center of the Jewish Museum in Prague, Terezin operated "as a ghetto between 1941 and 1945, to which about 150,000 Jews were deported by the Nazis. The Nazi plan was to concentrate in Terezin most of the Jewish population of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, together with elderly, famous or privileged Jews from Germany, Austria and several other countries; to transfer the inhabitants of the ghetto gradually to extermination camps; and to conceal from the free world the fact that European Jewry was being exterminated by showing off Terezin as a ‘model settlement’."
Gifted Jewish children were encouraged to draw to assert their artistic talents but their young souls sensed the demonic designs of their captors. Why, oh why, were there no butterflies in the ghetto? Margit Koretzova (April 8, 1933-October 4, 1944) drew a beautiful butterfly reproduced in full color on the cover of the program. Pavel Friedmann (January 7, 1921-September 29, 1944) composed a poem that concluded with this lament: "Butterflies don’t live in here, in the ghetto."
Scores of paintings and photographs of the children of Terezin were on display at the foyer of the Main Theater. What deep, dark eyes were these that gazed back at me that seemed to plead "Remember Terezin"?
The concert presented works by young Czech Jewish composers detained in the prison camp. These were Scherzo Triste, Op. 5 by Pavel Haas (June 21, 1899, Brno-October 1944, Auschwitz); Partita for String Orchestra by Gideon Klein (December 6, 1919, Prerov-probably on January 17, 1945, Furstengrube); and Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 25 by Viktor Ullman (January 1, 1898, Tesin-October 1944, Auschwitz).
Maestro Eugene Castillo and the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra delivered an eminent reading of these works the respective talents of whose composers were untimely ripped in the bud toward the end of the Holocaust.
Young Israeli pianist-composer Noam Sivan was the soloist in the Ullman concerto and he delivered a brilliant account of the score including that of the final cadenza, which he himself had composed.
In his message, Ambassador Slavicky states: "This project doesn’t only intend to commemorate the tragic fate of the European Jews. It emphasizes the ever-present hope, and it also seeks to stand as a warning against fanaticism of any kind. For it is fanaticism that is the principal cause of human catastrophes, wars, and genocides. And just by presenting the works of authors tortured to death, we confirm that their lives were not sacrificed in vain."
Ambassador Sagi states: "…we continue to hope that while decades have passed since these events, we will always choose to keep in mind the lessons from this bleak time, and take from its ashes the embers necessary to start a revolution of peace and tolerance."
And I would like to add that we need to remember Terezin so that we can do something to make certain that it is not repeated in our time and to make certain that the butterflies return to Terezin.
For comments, reactions and invitation, send e-mail to jessqcruz@hotmail.com.
Duetto, the recital of Della and Anamaria at the CCP Little Theater placed on display the unique art of these musicians, these twin spirits, whose two pairs of hands pranced over the pianos in a pensive mood, in playful parody, or in a joyous flight of fancy, their notes and chords meeting in consonance and dissonance, in a congruence of tones or in conflict and contrast in accord with the demands of the scores and the composer’s vision.
Introduction et Allegro by M. Ravel was not a 20-finger-limbering-up exercise for the ladies but a heady Burgundian champagne to open a musical feast which they served with the joie de vivre of the Gallic spirit.
An appetizing native ensalada which has the tang and taste of manggang hilaw and bagoong – that’s green mango and fish paste to the uninitiated – is R. Sunico’s Philippine Airs, a concoction of local tunes, folk songs and popular hits arranged by Raul. He squeezed out the saccharine from the all-too familiar ditties and rearranged them in ingenious variations even employing outrageous dissonance for comic parody. Under the garnished garb, the listener can discern, shorn of the sugar, the spice of Bahay Kubo, Ti Ayat Ti Meysa Nga Ubing, Neneng, Leron Leron Sinta, Lagi Kitang Mamahalin and Kalesa.
Just as tangy, if not more, are the tangos of A. Piazzolla, Le Grand Tango, Adios Nonino and Libertango. Were Della and Anamaria up to these dances from the Argentine pampas? With as mucho gusto as the gauchos bareback on their bulls!
Also beating with the Latino pulse is A. Copland’s El Salon Mexico arranged for two pianos by Leonard Bernstein. The gentler, more tuneful sections of the work the ladies handled with ease. However they could muster only the spirit of sangria in fortississimo passages where the full power of tequila with a pinch of salt would have been more appropriate. Is this worth quibbling about when they could project the atmospheric-pictorial vista of the land beyond the Rio Grande most forcefully?
Duetto concluded with a spiritual account by Della and Anamaria of F. Poulenc’s Concerto in D minor for Two Pianos. This opus displayed in full measure the kindred souls of these keyboard artists as they essayed with graceful ease the demands of the concerto, heedful to its changing colors, its kaleidoscopic moods. All in all a masterful reading as light in spirit as white wine from the vineyards of the Auvergne.
Over at the CCP Main Theater, the Embassies of the Czech Republic and of Israel together with the CCP presented Remember Terezin, a concert and art exhibit, in celebration of the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II and the liberation of the concentration camp and Jewish ghetto in Terezin.
The messages of CCP president Nestor O. Jardin, Czech Ambassador Stanislav Slavicky and Israeli Ambassador Yehoshua Sagi defined the significance of the occasion.
Terezin, a town a few miles away from Prague, was the site chosen by the Nazis for a bizarre experiment to deceive the free world.
According to the notes of Milos Pojar, director of the Education and Culture Center of the Jewish Museum in Prague, Terezin operated "as a ghetto between 1941 and 1945, to which about 150,000 Jews were deported by the Nazis. The Nazi plan was to concentrate in Terezin most of the Jewish population of the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, together with elderly, famous or privileged Jews from Germany, Austria and several other countries; to transfer the inhabitants of the ghetto gradually to extermination camps; and to conceal from the free world the fact that European Jewry was being exterminated by showing off Terezin as a ‘model settlement’."
Gifted Jewish children were encouraged to draw to assert their artistic talents but their young souls sensed the demonic designs of their captors. Why, oh why, were there no butterflies in the ghetto? Margit Koretzova (April 8, 1933-October 4, 1944) drew a beautiful butterfly reproduced in full color on the cover of the program. Pavel Friedmann (January 7, 1921-September 29, 1944) composed a poem that concluded with this lament: "Butterflies don’t live in here, in the ghetto."
Scores of paintings and photographs of the children of Terezin were on display at the foyer of the Main Theater. What deep, dark eyes were these that gazed back at me that seemed to plead "Remember Terezin"?
The concert presented works by young Czech Jewish composers detained in the prison camp. These were Scherzo Triste, Op. 5 by Pavel Haas (June 21, 1899, Brno-October 1944, Auschwitz); Partita for String Orchestra by Gideon Klein (December 6, 1919, Prerov-probably on January 17, 1945, Furstengrube); and Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, Op. 25 by Viktor Ullman (January 1, 1898, Tesin-October 1944, Auschwitz).
Maestro Eugene Castillo and the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra delivered an eminent reading of these works the respective talents of whose composers were untimely ripped in the bud toward the end of the Holocaust.
Young Israeli pianist-composer Noam Sivan was the soloist in the Ullman concerto and he delivered a brilliant account of the score including that of the final cadenza, which he himself had composed.
In his message, Ambassador Slavicky states: "This project doesn’t only intend to commemorate the tragic fate of the European Jews. It emphasizes the ever-present hope, and it also seeks to stand as a warning against fanaticism of any kind. For it is fanaticism that is the principal cause of human catastrophes, wars, and genocides. And just by presenting the works of authors tortured to death, we confirm that their lives were not sacrificed in vain."
Ambassador Sagi states: "…we continue to hope that while decades have passed since these events, we will always choose to keep in mind the lessons from this bleak time, and take from its ashes the embers necessary to start a revolution of peace and tolerance."
And I would like to add that we need to remember Terezin so that we can do something to make certain that it is not repeated in our time and to make certain that the butterflies return to Terezin.
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