Concerning the Cadaqués concert

Some men try to conquer with bullets and bombs. Others succeed with the power of music which goes where no terrorists would ever dare to go – the mind and heart and the human spirit.

The conquest I speak of is that by the Orquestra de Cadaqués of the audience that filled the Meralco Theater on Oct. 25. The Asian tour of the Spanish orchestra is part of an annual series of concerts billed as "Toyota Classics: a World of Harmony," sponsored by Toyota Motor Corporation.

The program featured compositions by Spanish composers, as well as works by Georg Frederic Handel and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Philippe Entremont, a living legend of our time as a piano virtuoso, conducted the Cadaqués Orchestra.

The concert opened with Xavier Montsalvatge’s Sortilegis (Enchantments), an orchestral etude with rapid changes in meter and dynamics to test the skills of young musicians who joined the First Orchestral Conducting Competition in Cadaqués in 1992.

This brilliant tour de force, dedicated by Montsalvatge to the Cadaqués Orchestra, might well be the ensemble’s signature piece. Needless to say, Maestro Entremont and the CO delivered it with all the vim and vigor that its post-modern idiom demanded.

It is a tradition of the Toyota Classics to engage an artist from the country where it is sponsoring a concert. This year, the talent is tenor Leodigario B. del Rosario. Fresh from his studies at the Cleveland Institute of Music where he obtained his Artist Diploma in Vocal Performance under the tutelage of George Vassos, and numerous engagements in operas in the U.S., Del Rosario sang arias from Handel oratorios, "Thou shall break them" from The Messiah and "Sound an alarm" from Judas Maccabeus. The young tenor negotiated with the greatest of ease the long-held notes and the fiendishly ornate Baroque curlicues of Handelian vocal pyrotechnic.

What can a Spanish orchestra play better than Spanish music? When the CO played Isaac Albeniz’ "Triana," the listener could sense the thoroughly idiomatic account of the composer’s evocation of the folk spirit of his native land.

The masterpiece of Albeniz is Iberia, a collection of short works for the piano divided into four books, each of which consists of three pieces, all reflecting various regional aspects of Hispanic life, culture and tradition. Although the pieces are firmly rooted in folksong and dance, the arrangements for the keyboard are stamped with the composer’s individuality.

"Triana" is the third piece in Book II of Iberia. The name is that of the Gypsy quarters in Seville. The festive tune associated with this district Albeniz mixes with the pageantry of the march of the toreadors in the bullring to recreate the sights and sounds of the city.

The orchestral version played with energetic gusto by the CO was commissioned from Jesus Rueda, a leading member of a new generation of Spanish composers.

To round up the first half of the concert, Gary del Rosario came on stage again to sing the aria, "Dies Bildnis ist bezaubernd schön" from Mozart’s singspiel Die Zauberflöte. His soulful outpouring of Tamino’s passion for his beloved as the young hero contemplated Pamina’s portrait merited a resounding ovation that he so justly deserved.

The second half of the concert featured Joaquin Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez and Manuel de Falla’s El amor brujo.

Of all musical instruments, none, save the castanet, is more closely identified with Spanish music than the guitar. Of all the exponents of the instrument, none has won universal acclaim as much as Andres Segovia. And the very few concertos for guitar in repertory, none has won the approbation of the public as much as that by Rodrigo.

The score breathes with the Castilian soul and beats with the heart of the Spanish Gypsy but balanced by classical restraint. A spirited first movement and another festive Allegro frame an exquisite Adagio, a mournful lament sweet in its sadness, with a cadenza that tests to the full the virtuosity of the soloist. All the challenges of the score, master guitarist Jose Maria Gallardo del Rey and Maestro Entremont and the Orquestra de Cadaques met with sheer aplomb.

Señor Gallardo del Rey displayed an incredible virtuosic command of technique that exhausted the expressive possibilities of the guitar especially in terms of subtle gradations of dynamics.

The thunderous clamor of the audience he pacified with two encores: a version for solo guitar of the "Milliner’s Dance" from El Sombrero de Tres Picos and a piece from Gaspar Sanz’ Suite Española.

The final offering of the evening was De Falla’s El amor brujo. From a failed attempt to compose for the dance-theater, the composer salvaged five of the best pages from the score and organized them into a suite for orchestra.

Based on an old legend, the libretto of the ballet is supposed to have been about an Andalucian Gypsy woman who is haunted by the ghost of a dead lover. To exorcise her unwelcome suitor, she applies the folkways of her people including witchcraft to rid herself of her tormentor.

Maestro Entremont and his orchestra pulled out all the stops in delivering the music of De Falla with its wild Gypsy rhythms and weird instrumental effects particularly in its show-stopping number, "Danza del fuego" (Fire Dance).

The plea of the audience for an encore was answered by the CO with a heart-pounding account of the Overture to Ruperto Chopi’s zarzuela, La Revoltosa.

The proceeds from the Cadaqués Orchestra concert in Manila will be donated by Toyota Motor Philippines Corporation to Tabang Mindanaw III, a peace and development program to help resettle and rehabilitate the Filipino refugees driven out of Malaysia to rebuild their lives in Sulu, Tawi-Tawi and Basilan.

Some apes in pants would apply violence and terror to push us back to the jungle and the swamps. Others with their gift of charity, their music, and their love for humanity, lift us to the stars.