PPO Spotlight: Virtual Pocket Performances

Series 5

Friday, April 2, 2021 | 8 PM

Cultural Center of the Philippines
CCP Complex, Roxas Boulevard, 1300 Pasay City, Philippines

Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra

For its Holy Week Special, The PPO Spotlight: Virtual Pocket Performances, features a program of inspirational classical music and sacred choral music arranged for instruments of the orchestra and recorded by PPO musicians from their own homes. These solo and ensemble performances of solemn music will set you in a tranquil mood for meditation and reflection. We invite you to listen and take in the serenity offered by this playlist as you pray and reflect this Lenten season. A blessed Holy Week from the PPO family!

PROGRAMME

1. The Lord Bless You & Keep You (John Rutter)
Performer: Ariel Sta. Ana, clarinet

“The Lord bless you and keep you” is a classical sacred choral composition by John Rutter, based on Numbers 6:24-26. It is a setting of a biblical benediction, followed by an extended “Amen”. Rutter scored the piece for four vocal parts (SATB) and organ. He composed it in 1981 for the memorial service of Edward T. Chapman, the director of music at Highgate School, London, with whom he had studied when he attended the school. It was published by Oxford University Press in 1981, in the anthology Oxford Easy Anthems, edited by David Willcocks.

2. Ave Maria (Gulio Caccini)
String Ensemble:
Violin 1: Berny Dulce Payte; Ma. Angelica Uson; Ayesa Cruz; Gemma Bicaldo
Violin 2: Joseph Frederick Regalario; Aristotle Ramos; Alfred Sanchez
Viola: Joy Allan Dela Cruz; Ferdinand Dumlao
Cello: Gerry Graham Gonzales; Herrick Ortiz
Contrabass: Aris Payte III; Vincent Dela Cruz

Caccini was a sixteenth-century composer, based in Florence, and a gifted singer in his own right. No one really knows who wrote this Ave Maria – mainly because the setting didn’t come to light until the twentieth century. Although its presence on any classical crossover singer’s album is now almost guaranteed, the piece was unknown before the 1970s. One plausible reason as to why this might be is that this Ave Maria arguably wasn’t composed until then. Many argue that its creator was, in fact, one Vladimir Vavilov, a relatively unknown Russian guitarist and composer, who recorded it in 1972 and declared it to be an anonymous song. The attribution to Caccini was then supposedly made at a later date by a musician who performed with Vavilov.

3. Lacrimosa for 2 Flutes (Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart)
Performers: Hercules Santiago and Marie Poblete, Flute

The Lacrimosa (Latin for “weeping/tearful”), also a name that derives from Our Lady of Sorrows, a title given to The Virgin Mary, is part of the Dies Irae sequence in the Roman Catholic Requiem Mass. Many composers, including Mozart, Berlioz, and Verdi have set the text as a discrete movement of the Requiem.

4. Requiem (Shigeaki Saegusa)
Performer: Gerry Graham Gonzales, cello

Shigeaki Saegusa is a Japanese composer best known for his opera version Chushingura of the well-known kabuki epic of the Forty-seven Ronin/Chūshingura with a libretto by the novelist Shimada Masahiko. He composed the Requiem for soprano, tenor, mixed chorus and orchestra in 1998.