Her song, her voice: A celebration of art songs by women

By John Anthony S. Estolloso

Where are the women composers of classical music?

That question goes very much in the same way for most artforms – painting, sculpture, literature; as history would show time and again, men and male sensibilities would dominate these aesthetic enclaves. And so, it is with classical music and its composition.

But the University of San Agustin’s Conservatory of Music has another narrative to share. Last Wednesday evening witnessed ‘Femme’, a celebration of lieder (art songs) composed by women. Surfacing from the obscurity of history and music literature, they took the spotlight as songs came to life through the masterful talents of the Conservatory’s musicians and singers.

The programme of composers was far from the familiar, save for a few names: Fanny Mendelssohn, Emilie Meyer, Clara Schumann, Alma Mahler, Pauline Viardot, Poldowski, Cecile Chaminade, Liza Lehmann, and Amy Beach. They were sisters, wives, daughters, and students of renowned personas who ordinarily overshadow the role of women in classical music – until someone takes up their works from dusty shelves and perform these, to the discovery that they are as skilled (or even better than) as their male contemporaries.

For the appeal of the lieder is two-fold: first, there is the sentimental poetry of its lyrics and then, the melodic setting of these verses. Poems by Verlaine, Heine, Kipling, and Stevenson find new depth and flair when phrased in and sung to melodies, embellishing literary substance with musical form – and feminine sensibilities. Add to that a consummate delivery of the piece and it elevates the genre into an aesthetic experience, one that transcends its customary performance in the intimate setting of private chambers or drawing rooms.

Soprano Adrianne Kylle Cortez’s delivery of Mendelssohn and Chaminade has nuances of the pensively introspective, mirroring the somber yet romantic lyricism of the poetry – a night-wanderer and a silver ring become laden with memory and yearning. Demmie Nicolette Maza’s subdued interpretations of Meyer and Viardot complemented the simile of the former with the nostalgia of the latter, the floral motif passing through romance and remembrance.

Wynn Villanueva and Amabelle Pamocol-Castro’s performances remained the mainstay of the Conservatory’s musical standards. Villanueva’s singing of Viardot’s ‘Les filles de Cadix’ transforms the song into storytelling, taking into the delivery the verve and vibrance of the narrative, replete with imagery and cultural color; her ‘L’heure exquise’ – composed by Poldowski, violinist Henryk Wieniawski’s daughter – underlined the pathos and romance of Verlaine’s descriptions of a moonlit night.  

Taking on the lieder in English, singers Janine Columbretis and Daevie Iligan explored the whimsy of English poetry with Liza Lehmann’s setting of the Kipling and Stevenson’s verses. Perhaps a tad hesitant in their delivery, they nonetheless proved to be promising pair: we hope to hear more from them in the next concerts.

Tenors Yves Adrian Gabasa, Ally Tupas II, and Jomel Garcia lent a sonorous intensity to songs by Clara Schumann and Alma Mahler. Garcia especially provided an operatic vigor to his delivery of Amy Beach’s ‘Forget-Me-Not’: the tenor of his tempered voice carried the soaring notes through the conservatory’s small music hall, sans need of a microphone.

Prof. Argiel Resurreccion and Dr. Gerardo Vicente Muyuela as accompanists provided the delicacy of touch and nuance that the poetry and music demanded. Then again, nothing of the grandiloquent and the verbose in the leider – and so it was with the piano accompaniments.

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Yes, there were women composers in history, and they wrote exquisite music: the lieder, exquisitely sung at the evening of March 25, gave credence to that. But where would they find the next stage and spotlight for these?

(The writer is a language and literature teacher in one of the private schools of the city. The poster is from the Conservatory’s official FB page.)