AN EVENING OF MUSIC, FEATURING FILIPINO CONCERT ARTIST, CECIL LICAD
a review by Rochita Loenen-Ruiz
( Published in Munting Nayon, June 2006)

To listen to Cecil Licad is to witness art in palpable form. It is to understand the interconnection of life and art, music and poetry, composition and translation. It is to hear the piano played by a wizard who translates notes into songs that inhabit the spaces of our soul.

Cecil Licad is a pianist in a class of her own, and the Muziekgebouw aan’t IJ was abuzz with culturally minded Filipinolandia as well as their Dutch counterparts on the 13th of May. The response to the Philippine Embassy’s invitation to attend Miss Licad’s concert was overwhelming.

Consul General a.h.Eppo Horlings gave his welcome address, to an auditorium that was almost full to capacity. After a short speech given by His Excellency, Ambassador Romeo A. Arguelles, the lights dimmed, spotlight focused on centerstage, on the grand piano, and a wave of applause filled the auditorium as Cecil Licad walked onstage.

Anyone looking at this woman could not guess at the power, the wizardry and the skill that lie behind her simple facade. She bows, takes her seat and placing her hands deliberately on the keys, sounds out the first notes of the Fantasie in c-minor by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.

This is so typical of Cecil Licad. First, the simple approach, and then the enchantment of her music.

We understand we are in the presence of an artist of superb skill. As the notes unfold, we find ourselves carried along into the passages of the Fantasie created by Mozart, now translated for us by the artist, Cecil Licad. While her rendition of Mozart is more romantic than classical, more expressive than detached, it serves her purpose well as it transports us to a realm where notes cascade and cavort and chase one another over the keyboard. In the hands of a lesser pianist, the expression would be over-dramatized, or the detachment too detached. Cecil produces the perfect mix, inviting the listener to come closer to the music.

In between, a short breather, just enough for the listener to regain his breath, and the musician launches into Chopin’s 12 Etudes op. 25. It is as if Cecil Licad has taken possession of these notes. As if she has torn the music from the page and made it her own. She is the artist who takes us on a whirling dazzling movement of runs, crescendos, diminuendos, dissonances and harmonies which leave the listener breathless.

Listening to her, I could not help but think of how Chopin is called the poet of the piano and how it takes only another poet to understand and translate the works of a poet long gone. I can imagine the piano poet, Chopin, playing these etudes with equal fiery passion..

We are privileged to bear witness to what won her that Leventritt Gold Medal in 1981. We hear power in her control over the music, the strength that is not strident but issues from perfect technique. Her fortes resonate inside our bones, and her pianos and pianissimos seem to draw the very breath from our souls. Every note rings clear and true, her runs are amazingly clean, not a stumble there, and the octave sequences, are a marvel.

Observe the swiftness of her fingers on the keyboard, observe how not a finger is placed carelessly, but all movements are thought out.

Hers is sheer musical poetry, Chopin himself would have risen up in from his grave to clap his hands and shout bravo and bravissimo.

After the twenty minute intermission, we returned to the auditorium to listen to Cecil play the Nocturne by J. Guy Ropartz, and to witness her masterful rendition of Sergej Rachmaninov’s, Sonata no. 2 in B flat minor op. 36.

Rachmaninov’s Sonata no. 2 with its musical layers and technical challenges is a piece that is not easily received by concert goers. In the hands of a lesser musician, the attention of the audience wanders. I believe Rachmaninov himself would have been proud of Cecil Licad’s rendition of this masterpiece.

Masterful as the master, Cecil Licad plays this piece not only flawlessly but she engages her listening public and keeps them hungry for more long after she has lifted her hands from the keyboard to signify the end of the final piece.

It was interesting to note that the programme for the evening gave a listing of classical-romantic-impressionistic and late romantic composers. For an evening purported to promote culture, I noticed a lack of anything Filipino in Miss Licad’s repertoire.

Because of this it was pleasing, as well as an indication of the sensitivity of the musician, when in response to the cries of encore and bravo, Miss Licad performed a very Filipino composition, entitled Maligayang Bati. A poignant rendition as we bear in mind that a majority of her listeners that evening were Filipinos who still dream and long for the beloved country.