Pianist Angelo Rondello: Tonal clarity above all / Arias launch / Other events

The Tuesday recital of the young American pianist Angelo Rondello was virtually unheralded; nevertheless, the UP Abelardo Hall was filled to capacity.

Haydn’s Sonata in A Flat was played in a crisp, brisk, sparkling manner which kept the spirit of the composer joyfully alive. Rondello’s fingers travelled with nimble swiftness over the keyboard as he executed trills, chords and runs. Tonal clarity predominated throughout, as it did in the rest of the selections. Indeed, it was tonal clarity that dazzled!

Debussy’s Reflets dans l’eau, Homage a Rameau and Mouvement  their sensuous delicacy and subtlety ­ hallmarks of the composer’s impressionism  dramatically contrasted with Haydn’s classicism. The pianist’s rich, tapering, shimmering tonal colors conveyed the composer’s imaginatively diverse moods and perceptions.

The music of 20th century French composer Olivier Messiaen is described as “frequently venturing into the foreign world of musical expression far removed from those in which his fellow composers moved. He is a complex and original thinker. His music abounds with complicated polymodal and polyrhythmic writing and with intricate ideas. He is not afraid to be expansive; he is partial towards the exotic.

“He has experimented with tone colors and timbres to produce unusual sonorities and instrumental textures. Rhythm has particularly occupied his attention. He has used it with the variety and flexibility of a virtuoso.”

In the interpretation of Messiaen’s Regard de l’Eglise d’amour, Rodello doubtless proved himself of a virtuoso, matching the tremendous, overwhelming complexities and the unpredictable rhythms of the composer – in “the fusing and flowing of harmonies and the vicissitudes of rhythmic swirl”  these treated with fiery passion. Indeed, no pyro-technical device daunted the pianist in the bravura piece which he rendered brilliantly.

In quite another distinctive musical idiom, but likewise a bravura number  Schumann’s Symphonic Etudes, Op. 13  Rondello again displayed virtuosity. In his rhapsodic selection the pianist reflected its opulent melodic passages, in true Romantic fashion, demonstrating his firm grasp of its style, ending the finale masterfully.

The lusty applause led to a very brief piece for an encore, and upon insistent clamor, Rondello played Rachmaninoff’s Prelude with remarkably deep expressiveness, his dynamics widely and excitingly varied, ranging from one extreme to the other.

The fascinating, enthralling, magnetic recital showed the concertist’s talent encompassing the widest latitude.

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The works of world-renowned Chinese artist Zhou Jun are being displayed here for the first time in an exhibit which opened at the Ayala Museum Wednesday, with Washington Sycip as guest of honor. The show ends Jan. 20.

Spanish Ambassador Luis Arias-Romero will launch the book “Madrid-Manila Flight” on Jan. 20 at the Philippine Air Force Aerospace Museum, Col. Jesus Villamor Airbase.

Herewith, the background on the book: In the summer of 1926, three pilots of the Spanish Air Force left Madrid, each flying a Breguet Type 19 bomber accompanied by a mechanic. Their destination was Manila.

In these days of the superjet, the two cities are not more than half a day away from each other. Of the three planes which left Madrid, only one reached Manila after 39 days; one of the two other planes was forced to land and was abandoned in the North African desert, and the second met quite a similar fate on the coast of China.

The last plane carried two pilots  Capt. Eduardo Gallarza and Capt. Joaquin Longa from Macao to Aparri on May 11 and finally from Aparri to Manila two days later. A year after their flight, they published an account of their journey. Eighty-four years later, the Spanish Embassy has re-edited this book to commemorate that first flight.

The Ateneo Library of Women’s Writings (ALIWW) held the 16th Paz Marquez Benitez Memorial Lecture/Exhibit “Virginia Benitez Licuanan: Living in the Now” yesterday at the ALIWW Exhibit Room, Ateneo U. Paz Marquez Benitez, mother of the current CHED Chairman Patricia Licuanan, was my brilliant professor in a Shakespeare Course at the UP.

Arturo Luz’s exhibit “Renewal” opened Thursday at Alliance Francaise Total Gallery and ends Feb. 3.