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The Other View
A revolutionary’s poems as art songs
By Elmer A. Ordonez
Filipino musical artists have rendered the poems of Jose Maria Sison as art songs which, by definition, are "serious musical compositions
generally performed by a classical singer and a pianist."
The lyrics come mainly from Sison’s "Prison and Beyond" (1984) which won for the author, just released from a Marcos jail in 1986, the
Southeast Asia Write Award from the royal family of Thailand and national writers unions of Southeast Asia. Two of the poems are
more recent.
Sison started writing poetry as an English major student in UP Diliman where he developed as a nationalist and revolutionary. His first
book of poems, "Brothers," was published (1961) by Signatures founded by Andres Cristobal Cruz. Six of Sison’s poems (like "The
Guerrilla is Like a Poet," a favorite among activists in cultural performances) are included in Gemino H. Abad’s anthology of "Filipino
poets in English, A Native Clearing" (1993). Earlier Canadian Robert Mazjels used the "The Guerrilla is Like a Poet" as the title of his
anthology of Filipino poetry in English.
Rica Nepomuceno (soprano) sang "Songs of Love and Struggle: From Andres Bonifacio to Jose Maria Sison," the first CD album release
of the Euro-Philippine Inter-Cultural Solidarity, as well as Sison’s "Songs of Struggle and Liberation" -- made available by IBON Foundation.
A UP Music graduate and former faculty member, Nepomuceno was active in musical and dramatic circles in the country before leaving
for study abroad (Italy and Austria) where she has promoted both western classical and Filipino music.
Master pianist Aries Caces provides the accompaniment for the albums. Now based in Vienna, Caces is an accomplished chamber
musician and repetiteur as well as conductor, giving solo recitals and concerts in Europe and North America.
The music and arrangements in both CD albums and another CD version ("Of Bladed Poems") were written by Danny Fabella, Tony
Palis, Pete Velasquez, Ryan Andres, Aldeen A. Yanez, Levy Abad Jr. Noel Espina, Chino Toledo and Chicoy Pura. Sison himself worked
with Fabella in two of the songs.
Dutch composer Jos Linnebak provided the original music of "Sometimes, My Heart Yearns for Mangoes," written in prison by the poet.
A host of other progressive artists/cultural workers worked on the other aspects of the CD album project, like Edgar Fernandez and
Boy Dominguez, (art work), Elisa Tita Lubi, Bedette Libre and Ron Papag (production), Patrick Tirano, Aries Guinto, Louie Talan,
Dodjie Fernandez and Slyvia Vermeulan (recording and mixing).
I can imagine what Raul R. Ingles went through in producing his own CD album of "love poems" as read by personalities like Loren
Legarda and Cheche Lazaro -- launched this year.
Listening to Sison’s poems as art songs is a singular experience akin to hearing the poems of Andres Bonifacio’s "Pag-ibig sa Tinubuang
Lupa" and Amado Hernandez’s "Kung Tuyo na ang Luha Mo, Bayan" rendered earlier into moving songs by young activists in prison.
Sison is "delighted" that his poems of struggle are "set to music in several musical styles by young brilliant composers and performed
by wonderful singers and musicians." He is confident that the albums will be enjoyed by the young and activists of all age brackets.
Magsaysay Awardee for Literature Bienvendo Lumbera notes that the albums "present another face of the author of "Brothers and
Prison and Beyond" (where) the readers met the literary man as ideologue. Now that his words have been given wings, we recognize
the ideologue as a lyric artist singing of freedom and democracy." Lumbera himself has written many librettos for operas and lyrics for
commemorative purposes -- like the haunting and inspiring words of "Mendiola" set to a traditional Bikol song. The people’s movement
has indeed produced innumerable songs that has moved the masses from the time of Andres Bonifacio and the 1896 Revolution
through the periods of struggle (including the Sakdal and Huk uprisings) against colonial hegemony to the present struggle for national
democracy and socialism that Sison himself with other young activists started in the sixties. The Filipino version of the song "Internationale"
dating back to the Paris Commune (1871) became popular during the First-Quarter Storm and Diliman Commune and was even heard
over the Carillion on campus. "Bayan Ko" (Jose Corazon de Jesus/Constancio de Guzman) has been the preferred song of the middle
forces and "nonideologues" uniting with the masses against corrupt regimes.
View original posting at http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/storypage.aspx?StoryId=25001
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