THE achingly beautiful lyrics to Nonoy Zuñiga’s ballad, “Love Without Time,” written by Willy Cruz, were what National Artist for Music Ryan Cayabyab initially shared with the audience on the second night of his “MaestroClass” with “Love Letters,” a Valentine’s concert on February 14 at the state-of-the-art 780-seat Proscenium Theater at Rockwell.
For the second time, Mr. C engaged the audience in an intimate conversation that he started his concert with as the house lights remained at full glow in the full-house theater.
On his Steinway grand piano, he opened the concert with the songs of Jose Mari Chan – “Love at Thirty Thousand Feet” and “Big Beautiful Country” – both familiar jingles.
The night gave a take on the songs of Jose Mari Chan, George Canseco and Willy Cruz in “Love Letters,” a concert of love songs written by three very important Filipino songwriters whose songs were most popular during the last quarter of the 20th century.
Interestingly, all the last names of the songwriters start with the letter C – Canseco, Chan and Cruz – including Cayabyab.
“Last time, I spoke about song forms,” Mr. C reminded his audience. “The very first song forms I talked about was strophic. All the verses are the same melody, but different stories. Most of the songs of Joe Mari are refrain form.
“Why am I lecturing? This is MaestroClass. Tonight, I will talk about the binary song form. There are basically two of them – the verse refrain and the verse chorus. They are very popular song forms.
“‘Refrain’ is probably one of Joe Mari Chan’s very first songs that he has written. The verse refrain is like a long intro and the refrain is like, everybody knows that song. It’s like a long intro.”
Mr. C opened the lecture with lyrics from “Balut Penoy,” to give an example of a verse refrain. Then he gave another example of “Buhat,” where he asked the audience to join him in the refrain.
That is different from the verse-verse chorus, used by a lot of contemporary composers, where everybody sings the chorus. He played the familiar intro of “Kay Ganda ng Ating Musika,” popularized by Hajji Alejandro.
Another example of verse-verse chorus is the love song, “Araw Gabi,” which Mr. C penned for his better half, Emy Cayabyab.
That was his “MaestroClass” lecture for the night. “It is the time and season to celebrate love, especially through love songs,” Mr. C told his audience. “Especially love songs written by the three distinguished Filipino songwriters – George, Jose Mari Chan and Willy.
“I’m very honored to live and breathe the same air as this distinguished gentlemen. I worked longest with Joe Mari Chan. I did many of his arrangements of songs as far back as 1974. I even arranged ‘Love at Thirty Thousand Feet,’ that sounds like a salsa.
“I worked with George, but he was omni-present, because I did most of the arrangements sang by Basil [Valdez] and the youngest, Willy Cruz, we worked a lot together because we were in the same recording company.
“It’s time to celebrate. The way you feel, whether it be sadness, joy, pain and, of course, l-o-v-e, which is the inspiration for most songs. There is really quite nothing like love songs that speak of that magical moment when you see someone in the crowd who takes your breath away and the whole world stops.
“It’s so difficult to bring all these artists together,” added Mr. C. “I was very, very happy that Celeste said yes, Basil said yes and Ogie and we have two young singers. Ang saya.”A beautiful medley of “Let’s Stop and Talk A While,” “Tell Me Your Name,” “Please Be Careful with My Heart,” “Here and Now” with “Tawag ng Tanghalan” duets champions JM de la Cerna and Marielle Montellano, started the music unraveling for “MaestroClass.”
Then balladeer Ogie Alcasid entered the frame to introduce the winning duo, but playfully requested Mr. C to introduce him. “Nainggit ako at parang gusto ko din kumanta ng Joe Mari Chan na kanta,” said Ogie. “Since you’re all very beautiful here tonight, I am a beautiful boy, I’d like to sing a beautiful song.” Then, he crooned, “Beautiful Girl.”
“Nag-uumapaw ang mga matatanda” Ogie joked his audience, obviously composed of mostly senior citizens. He rendered a George Canseco original, “Kapantay ay Langit.”
Celeste Legaspi, who claimed her name also starts with a letter C, gave the audience the familiar “Mamang Sorbetero,” whose original English lyrics (“Mr. Songwriter”) were penned by Jose Mari. The Tagalog version was written by Gryk Ortelaza.
Celeste dauntlessly asked Mr. C to alter the set list. “Change the set,” which readily transformed into a La Scala or Carnegie Hall backdrop. “Change the lights. Now I need a mike stand. Then I need to drink. Are we ready?”
Then the audience heard the operatic version of “Ang Pipit,” Celeste Legaspi version.
Long before Spotify or YouTube came to fore, George Canseco was one of the prominent figures of writers, shared Mr. C. And Basil Valdez became the voice behind many of Canseco’s greatest hits. “Legend,” referred to by Mr. C.
Basil crooned “Ngayon at Kailanman” and “Kastilyong Buhangin,” two of his hits penned by Canseco.
Mr. C also rendered two ballads from Jose Mari Chan’s “Minsan Pa” and “Afraid for Love (To Fade),” two from George Canseco “Kung Ako’y Iiwan Mo” and “Hanggang sa Dulo ng Walang Hanggan” and two from Willy Cruz “Kumusta Ka” and “Let the Pain Remain.”
Basil gave the audience “Salamin ng Buhay” and considered himself “so blessed” to have recorded 20 songs of Canseco. Basil also recorded 16 songs of Mr. C. The latter has been his music director for the past 48 years and they have both been in the music industry for 55 years.
The only song where Canseco and Mr. C collaborated on was “Maria,” the poetic version of “Hail Mary” And Basil shared the song with the audience.
“I’m just in awe to share the stage with Basil, Celeste and Mr. C,” said Ogie, who admitted he is not millennial but Gen X, born in 1967. He obviously provided most of the laughs in the spiels. “There are so many Cs tonight, we should include me, AlCasid,” he teased. He got to sing briefly his originals, songs that he wrote – like “Kailangan Kita,” “Mahal Kita Walang Iba” and “Nandito Ako.”
The “king” and the “joker” exited the stage anew which gave the “queen” Celeste to dedicate a song to her mom, Vitaliana Kalugdan Legaspi and she belted out “Gaano Ko Ikaw Kamahal,” penned by another C, Ernani Cuenco.
With Rowell Santiago at the helm, “MaestroClass” will next explore the music of Burt Bacharach in May.
“I will continue doing the Maestro thing,” Mr. C earlier said. “I hope it will leave a lasting impression on how a concert can be enjoyed prismatically – not just in the performance; in the production values; in the stories about the songs; the personal takes of the individual artist, but also in learning new things about music and how it works.”
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