When Cecile Licad And Tchaikovsky's Piano Concierto No. 1 Made My Christmas

In 1987, fresh from passing the CPA board examinations, I flew from Bacolod City to Manila in order to find work. Armed with my new CPA license, degrees in Economics and Accounting, and a transcript of scholastic records that was littered with very good grades, I found a job as a junior auditor in an accounting firm in Makati. It was a good place to start a career, I told myself. 

As a new employee, I did not have vacation leave credits that would have allowed me to go home for Christmas. Worse, as a new employee, my starting salary could not even afford me to buy a plane ticket home.😭

But I was realistic. As an accountant, I knew that my cash inflow was just enough for my daily transportation, meals, and occasional movies, and I understood it all. I was just happy I was working. In Makati, no less! 😎

That December, I told my parents I could not be with them during Christmas, although my mom could have found a way to send me a plane ticket. It would be the first time ever for me to be away, so I just had to accept it. I reminded myself that Christmas Day was just 24 hours, and so was New Year's Day. But I was lucky I lived at an uncle's home in Tambô, Parañaque, for free, and even luckier that he had a cook and a houseboy who watched over his house when he was away. So, I wouldn't be really alone.

A week before Christmas Day, I read in the news that Cecile Licad would be playing at the Concert at the Park, a program held at Luneta Park that featured free musical and theatrical performances. Everyone who played the piano knew who she was! The Cecile Licad! At Luneta Park! For free!😄

When I was a kid, my mother wanted me and my brother to learn how to play the piano. She was a big fan of Van Cliburn and she wanted her boys to play too. I was about 10; my brother five. She found us a piano teacher in our hometown, Mrs. Paz Certicio, and told us we were scheduled to take lessons on weekends during the school break. After his first try, my brother gave up. He told my mom he'd rather play a ukelele. I, not wanting to disappoint her, continued. My piano lessons were in the afternoons, at two and for 30 minutes. But at 2PM, a sleepy hour, those 30 minutes felt like a day! 😢

It was only when school resumed after the summer break that I appreciated the lessons! I suddenly found Music, a school subject I hated, very easy! I could read notes, tell whole notes from half notes, and even read sharps and flats effortlessly! After a few months, I was playing Beethoven's Für Elise! And after a year, I could play (with two hands) Pandango Sa Ilaw (Tempo di Valse) and Sarung Banggi without looking at the music sheet! Fascinated, I could not even explain how I was able to memorize the entire sheet and knew exactly what white key, black key, or a group of keys to press simultaneously to make it sound melodious when played in a sequence. I loved it! 😎

Unfortunately, I had to stop taking piano lessons after two years because Mrs. Certicio moved her lessons to after-class schedules. But over the years, when I watch piano concerts on TV, I would envy those virtuousos who effortlessly played those difficult pieces that were full of sharps and flats, and finger-twisting chords that I could only dream of playing, and when I read the news about our famous pianists in the Philippines like Cecile Licad and Rowena Arrieta, and their successes abroad, I was also impressed and proud! I felt I was still a pianist, but without practice!😄

Then Christmas Day came.😌

In the afternoon of December 25, 1987, a Friday, I took two jeepney rides: first, from Tambô to Baclaran; then, from Baclaran to UN Avenue. I then walked towards Luneta Park and looked for the venue. When I got there, the long benches at the front were already taken. It turned out I was not the only one excited to watch the special performance. I looked for a seat a few rows back, and waited for Ms. Nikki Coseteng, that day's emcee who was seated at the right side of the stage, to start the program. If I remember right, it was the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra that accompanied her in the concierto.

After she was introduced, we welcomed her, not only with an excited audience's applause, but more like a homecoming palakpakan. Cecile then took her seat at the grand piano. Her audience did not care about the noise around the venue, or that the music could drift away with the Manila Bay breezes. She could just play Chopsticks and I would still give her a standing ovation.😆 

Tchaikovsky's Piano Concierto No. 1 is a very familiar piece of classical music. The first bars always got your attention; very theatrical and was always used in some dramas. And Cecile had to play (pun intended!) for more than 30 minutes what Tchaikovsky had brilliantly composed in 1875! 

As I was at the back, I had to crane my neck! Her hands were jumping up and down the ivory keys, and running from left to right and back again, her audience was mesmerized! I was enthralled! 

After the first movement, it finally sank in. I told myself this was the highlight of my Christmas! Licad! Tchaikovsky! Philharmonic! What a Christmas gift! But more than a Christmas treat, it was an experience and a dream come true!😊

In between movements, my eyes wandered around and I recognized her former husband, cellist Antonio Meneses, bespectacled and sitting at the left side of the audience on an empty bench with a baby on his lap. I thought the baby must be their son, Otavio. I guessed her family spent their Christmas holidays in Manila.🌲

After the final thunderous notes of the concierto with Cecile raising both of her hands in the air, finally  releasing the grand piano from her enslavement, I could still hear the music ringing in my ears which was now mixed with an even louder applause. We were all standing!🙏 

I could no longer remember if there was an encore, but there could have been one, or even maybe two. All I could remember was a certain realization: the coming together, in one moment, of things fascinating to me. 

I would have wanted to compare this moment to a rare planetary alignment where my fortune aligned with Mars, Venus and Jupiter in the night sky. This moment, however, was more of a confluence: I, seated in front of Cecile Licad as she played Tchaikovsky's Piano Concierto No. 1, which was the concierto Van Cliburn played that won him the 1958 Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in Moscow, and he, being my mother's favorite pianist from whom she got an idea to send me to take piano lessons.♫🎶

And when I told my mother about it the next time I came home, she could not believe it herself!😀

Looking back, I realized I was not meant to come home for the holidays that year because there was a special gift awaiting for me on Christmas Day in Manila. We should not wonder how the universe conspires to grant our wishes, or how things happen the way they do. Maybe, when you wish and you are deserving, it will come true for you too!😍

Salamat guid, Cecile Licad, Tchaikovsky, Mrs. Certicio, and my Mother!😃

(Cecile Licad playing Tchaikovsky's Piano Concierto No. 1 with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and Sir Georg Solti conducting) 

#CecileLicad #Tchaikovsky #PianoConciertoNo1 #LunetaPark #music #pianist #classicalmusic #thankyou #salamat 

Jose Rizal and The Pambansang Photobomb

When I was in high school, my siblings and I spent a summer in Manila. We stayed at Inday Miniang's Fe and Caridad Apartments along Arquiza Street to join Tita Luz and Tita Etta. (I heard Inday Miniang's heirs eventually sold the building and is now a hotel). Arquiza Street is four blocks away from the Rizal Park in Manila.

As the apartments were just next to the Ermita Church (Archdiocesan Shrine of the Nuestra Senora de Guia), Tita Luz would hear Mass early in the morning with Tita Etta, and I would join them in their stroll around the Rizal Park after. Even before 7AM, I remember a lot of people were already at the country's premiere park jogging, passing through, and strolling like us. We would walk the whole stretch of the Park and completed the stroll all the way to the US Embassy until we reached the apartments at Arquiza St. That summer, I greeted the statue of the Philippine's most revered national hero, Jose Rizal, a few times before breakfast. 

And speaking of his statue, last week, I finally saw for myself the current controversy about the Jose Rizal statue, or what's behind it. Literally. Riding my friend Fay's car, and not strolling anymore, we passed by the statue and snapped a few shots. And as expected, what I got were photos - photobombed photos of the national hero's statue.

                (Photobombing from the right)

         (Photobombing behind Jose Rizal)

                  (Photobombing from the left)

I hope this photobombing is temporary. I could no longer go back to that summer when Tita Luz, Tita Etta and I strolled past Jose Rizal's statue and just looked up to him with the blue morning sky as his backdrop. After all, the national anthem goes "sa simoy at sa langit mong bughaw" (with the breeze and your blue sky), and not "sa simoy at sa building mong bughaw". Ha-ha-ha! 

                    (Up close and vertical)

As Jose Rizal is the pambansang bayani (national hero), the building is the pambansang photobomb (national photobomb). Credit to the writer who coined this term. 

With the legal cases filed by parties involved in this pambansang photobomb (national photobomb) controversy, will it be demolished soon? I hope it will be. I remembering seeing old postcards of the statue with clear blue skies as the perfect backdrop. Now, with that DMCI Torre de Manila structure behind the statue, I doubt if they want to print postcards with an apartment building as the main tourist attraction.

(The photobomber building as seen from the window of the National Museum of the Philippines)

Someday, when I fly back to Manila, I hope to stroll around the Rizal Park and greet the national hero once more. And just like any tourist, I want to have my photo taken with him alongside the simoy ng hangin, the langit mong bughaw, and nothing else.