C Notes

It was a performance that left one weak in the knees and gasping for breath. This is by no stretch of the imagination a learned music critique, but the experience of one who, with an untrained ear, was still propelled into the realm of the immortals by one whose artistry is beyond superlatives.

Last Monday’s Cecile Licad concert with the San Miguel Orchestra was breath-taking and magical. I cannot discuss the nuances of the strings and the woods and the horns, but it is undeniable, even to the most dense, that one was in the presence of an extraordinary and exceptionally gifted artist. Licad in a bright red sleeveless cowl-necked top and black crepe pants (such are the things a music ignoramus notices) strode in almost casually, belying the gargantuan task that lay ahead: Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No. 3, the one of which the composer himself is supposed to have said, "I wrote it for elephants."

No lumbering pachyderm was she, but a tower of strength and energy and artistry and virtuosity, putting heart, body, soul and a touch of the divine into the piece. At the touch of her fingers the piano took on a life of its own–from heart-pounding crescendoes to lilting notes like ripples on a brook, Licad was not simply playing music; she was music.

In the middle of it all the lights went out–that’s what we get for protesting and slashing the PPA–but instead of a disaster the few minutes became an other worldly experience. Licad played on and, sitting in the total darkness of the CCP Main Theater, there was nothing but the music–and it was perfect. The gods gifted mankind not only with fire, but also with music. Music like this.

It is no wonder then that the audience leapt to its feet and greeted Licad and the orchestra with thunderous ovations and repeated curtain calls. She finally obliged with an encore–St. Francis Walking on Water, another "elephant" of a piece that filled the theater to its farthest corners. Again the ovations were thunderous, but this time she motioned for the concert master to lead the orchestra members off stage; there would be no more encores. Indeed, after those two "monster" pieces, it would have been super-human to have played another note.

This is what audiences at tomorrow evening’s solo concert have to look forward to. In a program of Schubert, Liszt, Liszt-Busoni and Chopin, it will again be a purely magical evening. While she is staunchly and proudly Filipino, the world is really the only stage big enough for an artist like Cecile Licad.

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And what of the San Miguel Orchestra, whose debut with an artist of the world it was? Bravo and bravo to the 65-member orchestra. They became part of the music too, taking nothing away from the solo piano but giving it everything it needed. Conductor Rodel Colmenar, devoid of theatrics and sweeping gestures, brought it all together into a seamless whole. He is what an orchestra needs–not a star, but a focal point, a leader.

Like an expectant father, musical director Ryan Cayabyab was on pins and needles, but in the end justifiably and obviously proud. And he had reason to be. I did not see San Miguel chair Danding Cojuangco in the audience, which is a pity, because he would have seen, heard and felt how good an investment he had made, what lofty heights the company’s arts program has reached. Number-crunchers might insist on quantifying this investment in the arts against say, the company’s basketball team (which, with players in the national pool, didn’t even make it to the finals in the last PBA conference), but they must realize that the orchestra has reached heights no three-point shot or reverse lay-up has ever–or will ever–reach.