JM Cruz, A. Caces, Rondello/UST Choir is tops abroad

Filfest’s latest concert in Alabang’s Insular Life Theater featured pianists Jiovanney Emmanuel Cruz and Aries Caces. The opening piece, Saint-Saens’ Africa, was played by Caces with tremendous power and élan to highlight its percussiveness. He avidly stressed this quality in dazzling manner, conveying its touches of lyricism midway, and again exhibiting its percussiveness in a thunderous climax. Caces is doubtless a master.

Musicologists consistently aver that Liszt’s concertos are all sound and fury signifying nothing. Herewith is a quote: “One can only wonder why Liszt’s two concertos are still played: they are windy, sentimental, invertebrate and as dated as plush. In general, this entire class of Liszt’s music is worse than third-rate, and art would suffer no appreciable loss if it were all to be destroyed overnight in a great, cleansing conflagration.”

Cruz’s rendition of Liszt’s Concerto No. 1 in E-Flat Major presented a case wherein a pianist rose above the composer, converting a third-rate piece into first-rate. One held one’s breath as Cruz demonstrated vitality, fire and chordal sweep, his steely fingers turning nimble in the rippling runs, while asserting the glaring contrasts in mood, rhythm and tempo. All these ennobled the music, the injection of showmanship rendering the interpretation even more stunning and electrifying. Indeed, overwhelming!

The guitar has always been identified with Spain and fittingly, Perfecto de Castro, with his ten-string classical guitar, enchanted the audience with Rodrigo’s Spanish Concierto de Aranjuez. Ruben Reyes played the more contemporary Concierto Elegiaco by Leo Brouwer. Both guitarists showed formidable technique, fluency and spirit.

Under the admirable baton of Agripino Diestro, whose sensitivity and gusto were evident, the Filfest Festival Orchestra gave more than adequate support, striking accentuation and diverse tonal colors to complement those of pianist and guitarists.

Angelo Rondello’s first engagement in this country last Sunday at the Philamlife auditorium was under distressing circumstances. Having fallen ill upon arrival, he was confined in the hospital and got out of it on the very day of his concert, thus allowing for only a single rehearsal of Beethoven’s “Emperor” Concerto with the UST Symphony Orchestra under Aries Caces.

Rondello appeared weak and wan as he walked slowly onstage. His version of Chopin’s Mazurkas in A Minor and B Flat Minor was distinctive, particularly his rather exaggerated rubatos and the subtle, finely graded nuances he infused into the mazurkas which emerged as slow rather than lively dances, their irregular rhythms helping to make them a fascinating departure from usual renditions.

In Ravel’s Sonatine in F Sharp Major, the pianist brought out with marked eloquence the characteristics of each movement, his approach graceful and poetic, the initial movement surging forcefully.

In Barber’s Sonata in E Flat Minor, new to local music lovers, the soloist conveyed rhythmic vigor and fire in the opening movement, contrasting moods, ranging from dramatic to lyrical in the ensuing movements, and finally majestic grandeur in the finale.

Throughout, Rondello was consistently focused, demonstrating consummate control which was likewise evident in the Beethoven Concerto for which Aries Caces wielded the baton with the keenest precision, firm authority and flair.

There were a few minor glitches in the Concerto for which neither the pianist nor the conductor could be held accountable, and which in fact could be attributed to the aforementioned, inevitable lack of rehearsals.

The audience was highly impressed notwithstanding, erupting in prolonged, lusty applause for Rondello and Caces who both performed with brilliance and brio.

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The 26-member UST Singers under Fidel Calalang Jr. returned from its 17th international tour of various US cities including NY, SF and LA. It triumphantly participated in the California International Choral, the first and only US choral competition.

Therein, the UST Singers won three top prizes in three categories over choirs from the US, Macedonia, Africa, Saudi Arabia and the Philippines. In 1995, the ensemble won the Choir of the World Grand Prize in Wales, UK.