Tiu masters Beethoven / Sunico’s latest/Filfest
I quote, “Beethoven is the most universally cherished musician who, in the course of his heroic pilgrimage, has created something enduring for every sort and condition of man. He left a testament of beauty with a legacy for every man.
“His 32 sonatas are the most truly serious and profoundly thought-out works ever written for the piano — they are symphonies for a solo instrument.”
Albert Tiu, a recipient of several highly prestigious international awards and a first prize in a similarly prestigious Jeffrey Ching competition, chose Beethoven’s Sonata No. 11 in B Flat Major and Sonata No. 29 in Flat Major (the “Hammerklavier”) for his recent concert at F. Santiago Hall.
An academician has these qualified comments on the “Hammerklavier”: “At some point in every movement, its great poetry fades into the listless scientific prose of the experimentalist. In fact, if this was the last of Beethoven’s sonatas, its prolixity, its not infrequent dullness, and its almost gaseous diffuseness might be justifiably explained by his deafness.”
Notwithstanding the above, it is to Tiu’s immense credit that his interpretation of the “Hammerklavier” and of the Sonata No. 29 in B Flat Major conveyed their deep thought and feeling through his mastery of Beethoven's rhythmic, harmonic, chromatic and contrapuntal complexities and innovations. Tiu's focus on grand lines as well as on the minutest musical detail was unflagging.
Movements were made expressive through tonal hues, widely-ranging dynamics and superior — indeed, superb technical skill, including singular dexterity of the left hand. Proportions were carefully observed and adjusted, thought was combined with imagination, embellishments were tasteful and restrained, never showy.
Further, Tiu's renditions sensitively delineated the differences that distinguished one sonata from the other, and, to a certain degree, Beethoven’s development as a composer.
Because resounding applause would not cease, Tiu sat down to play a Chopin Impromptu — warning the audience that after the Beethoven sonatas, he was not up to anything else just then.
Indeed, listeners, as they left the hall, realized and recognized what made Beethoven a great composer and Tiu a supremely worthy interpreter.
My mind inextricably identifies Raul Sunico as the titan who in 2003 played all four piano concertos of Rachmaninoff in a single evening without a score — a record unprecedented here and abroad.
Next, the incredible Sunico learned 137-page Busoni Concerto in less than two weeks, committing to memory the last remaining pages on board the plane bringing him to
Currently, Sunico is UST Conservatory dean, and since he took over the post, its activities have doubled. Despite his manifold tasks, he still fulfills foreign engagements, the latest being “Bayanijuan, a Concert for Heroes” at the Intercontinental Hotel in
‘Filfest’ in Alabang
Herewith are the remaining Filfest concerts set for
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