A review of an all-Kasilag album "Kasilag East/West"

"Kasilag East/West" is an album containing four of Kasilag's works. It was released in 1979 under Kubing Records. For the performers, Lucrecia Kasilag herself conducts the Cultural Center of the Philippines Philharmonic Orchestra with Zenas Reyes-Lozada as Pianist.

Discogs link: https://www.discogs.com/Kasilag-CCP-Philharmonic-Orchestra-Zenas-Reyes-Lozada-East-West/release/8174552

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    The first disc contain some of Kasilag Award-winning works: the Divertissement for Piano and Orchestra of 1960 and the Toccata for Percussions and Winds of 1959. Both earned the Cultural Heritage Award, a prestigious award at that time given by the government to outstanding works by artists.

    The Divertissement, a Piano Concerto in all but name, is in three movements: Allegro Moderato, Poco Andante, and Allegro Vivace. In the first movement we are introduced by a "western" theme against an "eastern" ostinato. The 2nd movement is a theme and variations movement of a Mindanao chant. Kasilag walks this theme through several mystical sounding variations. The 3rd movement is in Rondo Form, with one of the sections in 2:3 polyrhythm.

    Compared to other recordings that I have of this work this has been the liveliest and the most intense interpretation of the work that I've heard. The composer leads the CCP Orchestra with much vigor, and Pianist Zenas-Reyes Lozada played the solo part masterfully as well. While the Orchestra did deliver well with their bombastic sound, it unfortunately suffers from several intonation issues. The strings seem to have lost their way during some of their several fast runs and high parts. Another issue that I've detected (but this is probably due to the state of my Vinyl copy) is that the orchestra seems to ignore dynamic markings; a bit weird considering the composer herself is conducting the work. Again, this is probably partly due to my copy of the recording, which might've amplified and compressed it, making the recording sound louder as a result. 

    The Toccata for Percussions and Winds is a chamber work for "Muslim and Orthodox Western Instruments." It is in Rondo Form, and it starts in a rhythmic fugue on the Percussion section. The rhythmic fugal theme passes down from several percussion instruments starting from the Snare drum to the 2 rows of Kulintangs. Afterwards the fugue finishes, and the Wind instruments state a new theme, taken from a Muslim chant. After that the fugal theme returns, this time given intensely by the piano, accompanied by the brass and other percussion instruments shortly after. The C section is calm. an ostinato at the piano while several instruments take turns in playing a theme. A short D section follows this, with tiruray gongs and the piano performing call-and-response phrases. The fugal section and the B section reprises, and finally the Coda ends everything with a bang.

    I think this is one of Kasilag's finest works. I think its one of the works where she blends Eastern and Western perfectly into a finely-crafted piece of music. I've been fortunate enough to obtain a copy of the score, but it unfortunately took some of the magic off this recording because it revealed the mistakes and sloppy performance of the players. For instance, during the first section, the Kulintang players basically got lost in the middle of performing their part. The Kulintangs were so unclear in one part that I don't even know if they're improvising or not. The clarinet lost count in their part in the first B section, as well. How did Kasilag not notice these I do not know. This masterwork is in need of another recording.

    The 2nd disc contains a Ballet and another chamber work: Sisa and Diversions. Sisa is a ballet written in 1978 while Diversions is an experimental work from 1975.

    Sisa, as you could probably tell from the title, is a ballet about the life of Sisa, the insane mother from Rizal's novel Noli me Tangere. In this recording it was presented as a Suite. It is more "Western" sounding compared to Kasilag's other works, and the predominant usage of a Harpsichord is an interesting feature. I can't say anything special from this work, aside from the extensive Harpsichord and guitar passages, and it apparently also has a synthesizer but it wasn't shown in this suite. Unfortunately the orchestra suffers from intonation issues and some other problems as well.

    Diversions is a strange work from this album. It is experimental, with tape recordings of Philippine ethnic instruments being played alongside a Piano, Violin, Cello, and Harp. Admittedly this piece I took the longest in trying to understand. I can't find anything that explains on what's happening on this work, either so I really can't say anything much about this work. But nevertheless, it is a strange but interesting piece of music.

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    This album certainly is an important milestone in Kasilag's legacy as a composer (but not as a conductor, sadly.) Even with only four works in this album, these four works contain the best examples of Kasilag's multiple styles of writing music, with her famous East/West blend in Divertissement and Toccata, the post-romanticism in her programmatic Sisa, and her venturing to New Music territory in Diversions. Since these are now out-of-print LPs, it took me a while to get a copy of the album. I wish they'll reissue this album into a CD or Online to spread the music of Kasilag's landmark pieces like the Divertissement into a much wider audience. Hopefully one would not go into the trouble of locating a copy of this hard-to-find Album in the future once a digital reissue gets into play.