‘One Brain Between You’

Based on the repeated ovations they received from last night’s audience at the Cultural Center of the Philippines main theater, the Alban Gerhardt-Cecile Licad tandem can, in all probability, expect a comeback on these shores, hopefully under a more hospitable administration.

It was not the first time they performed together, but the team work and the chemistry between the German cellist and the Filipino pianist were pitch perfect that they indeed played (I use “played” the way a child would) as though they had "one brain between" them. This term we borrowed from an enamored fan, Lex O’Brien, a jazz musician, who saw the duo perform in Maryland, USA.

We hope to see and listen to more of the same, live performances of works by Chopin, Beethoven, Janacek and Shostakovich, in other places of the country outside the Center.

Our fervent hope doesn’t end there. My personal prayer is that the prodigies who grew up to be world-class musicians will not be held down by someone invoking the pull of utang na loob to a former patron, and they will not live to again see the day when they will be trotted out like “a carnival of animals,” as one pundit referred to the tribute to the Imeldific One. These musical and performing artists are not indentured servants.

The CCP management will do the country a service by reviewing the clause in a visiting artist's contract that disallows her/him from doing provincial engagements before a CCP show.

Tonight’s performance of Prokofiev’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in C major, Op. 26, with Ms. Licad as soloist under the baton of Oscar Yatco, is worth the wait. Writer Pablo Tariman quoted the pianist’s mother, Rosario Buencamino Licad, who “compared the energy needed by the concerto to a couple making love. ‘When your partner is about to reach a climax, you can’t let that energy down. You have to sustain it. Otherwise, everything about this piece will just fall flat on your face.’”