I first met pianist Cecile Licad at the Cagsawa Church Ruins in Daraga, Albay one day in August of 1975 when she was only 14 and I was 26.
That was the year she performed at the St. Agnes Academy in Legazpi City.
On the night I first heard her Ravel’s Sonatine with a PNR train hooting in the nearby railroad track, I also got married to her music.
It’s been 48 years since I met her in Albay and here I am, a 75-year old music fan, suddenly reflecting on our first meeting forty-eight years ago.
I recall that I was carried away by the performance of a then 14-year-old Licad that I made a radio program out of that recorded performance on a cassette in one radio station.
My first Licad interview came out on the front page of the Bicol Chronicle and that recorded performance would always begin and end my day in Albay. (Now I am in frantic search of that Jurassic cassette which probably perished along with my first cellphone the size of a short bond paper.)
What were the highlights of those 48 years of life listening to her music?
FAMILY LIFE
I was able to monitor not just her music but her personal life as well.
I got to meet her (ex) husband, Brazilian cellist Antonio Meneses (gold medalist in the Tchaikovsky Competition) and I toured them not just in Manila but in Bacolod, Zambales, Tagaytay and Cebu, among others.
I have a ringside view of her as a mother and I remember attending a CCP rehearsal of a Tchaikovsky concerto with her carrying a stroller and feeding bottles for her young Otavio.
When Otavio was ten, he was our pre- and post-concert entertainer. Relaxing with me with beer after her Mom’s engagement, he could regale us with his own brand of one-man shows. He would mimick another pianist play Variations on a Theme by Paganini, he could mimic a rich music patron’s delicate walk and all and yes, even his own Mom and the former first lady and even me!
In one outreach concert in Dumaguete City, her lola, Mrs. Rosario B. Licad, had stomach ache after our hearty lunch of seafood in Cebu. In the dead of night, I scoured Dumaguete’s streets looking for a drug store.
Next day in Dumaguete, another drama unfolded on the day of the concert in the level of dramatic exchanges in the films “Black Swan” and “Turning Point.”
Cecile didn’t like the huge Steinway grand that sounded like a harpsichord and I again went out looking for substitute piano in the houses of well-off music lovers. None exists but two would have sufficed but owners insisted not all my big music connections would make her say yes to the piano leaving their beautiful abodes.
When I returned to the theater, Cecile was doing some ironing of the inside part of the piano. “Pablo,” she insisted. “This piano won’t just work. My fingers are close to bleeding but no sound would come out. I guess you just have to cancel the concert.”
This led to a near bloody exchange between the music department head and the pianist.
Otavio’s grandma, Mrs. Rosario Licad, turned to the pianist and implored, “Cecile, “Maawa ka naman kay (Have pity on) Pablo. Think of the tickets Pablo will reimburse. Concert is almost sold out.”
The pianist gave me another look and she was probably alarmed. I looked like it was my last day on earth. “Okay Pablo. So, there is nothing we can do. I will agree to perform only if you do this: Make a polite speech before the concert asking the school to buy a good piano after this concert. I don’t know how you will put this but tell them I am performing on a bad piano.”
I was composing a speech just a few hours before the concert and thanks to the Divine Providence, the concert went well, bad piano and all. It turned out the piano was kept in a bodega with leaking roof for many months.
MOST DRAMATIC OUTREACH CONCERT
I was witness to countless standing ovations in Cebu, Bacolod, Legazpi City, Davao City (courtesy of impresario Margie Moran Floirendo), Nueva Ecija, Zambales, Tagaytay, and Tuguegarao City among others.
One of my last outreach concerts with her was probably the most dramatic.
Held in this resort near the birthplace of Emilio Aguinaldo, the concert preparations went well with Cecile telling me, “Pablo, how did you find this excellent venue?”
She rehearsed while I rearranged the seats for patrons and regular ticket buyers.
With a good venue and a good piano courtesy of Ray Sison’s ROS Music Center, Cecile said she’d take a good rest and then asked me to knock at her room two hours before performance.
But as the pianist was resting, I heard the sound of fire trucks.
What I didn’t realize was that the venue that I prepared earlier was on fire.
My panic was not so much on the venue as on the thought of a Bosendorfer piano costing millions perishing in that fire.
The most relaxed face that day was the piano owner, the flutist-piano dealer who told me to relax as the piano was insured anyway.
Fire was temporarily contained but we could no longer use the venue.
With a concert happening in two hours, I inspected an alternative venue, found it good enough and we started moving and re-arranging chairs.
Presidential daughter (now presidential sister) Irene M. Araneta wondered how the concert could happen with fire trucks all over the place.
I breathed deeply and told myself: I can’t panic.
When I went to Cecile’s room, she knew something was wrong with my nearly ashen face. But I managed to tell, “’Cile, you are performing in another venue?”
“What? | she exploded. “What happened to the venue you prepared?”
“It was partially damaged by fire Cale,” I muttered.
“Pablo, I cannot just perform anywhere. Can I be heard in that new venue?”
“I tested the acoustics Cale. It’s not bad. But Ray (Sison) said the was better than the damaged venue.”
Cecile let out a deep breath and said, “Okay, let’s go and let’s check the theater.”
Probably to sooth a tense and nervous concert organizer and an equally nervous audience, Cecile gave it everything she had. After Chopin’s Polonaise Fantasie in A Flat and Grand Polonaise Brilliante, the audiences were beside themselves with excitement. The new venue allowed them to be just a few feet away from the piano.
What we didn’t realize (again) was that something would happen in the middle of the fiery “Dante” sonata by Liszt. It was a piece that—in some sections—conjured images of inferno.
It was a hair-raising performance that elicited several standing ovations and endless encore pieces.
What we didn’t know was that the partially damaged venue was again on fire and threatening the adjacent alternative venue.
This was no way to end a standing ovation but after the autograph-signing, the audiences fled to safety.
Rustan’s Nedy Tantoco led Cecile to her car while I worry about paid tickets for music lovers who didn’t show up thinking the whole event didn’t take place because of the fire.
“That must be your most dramatic outreach concert,” Cecile told me as we settled on this business class plane accommodation on our way to another outreach concert in Cebu. I asked her to sign a picture with her and my granddaughter who witnessed her first fiery concert, literally speaking.
THREE CONCERTS
I last toured Licad in 2018 with three concerts in Iloilo City (at Nelly Garden, Molo Church and SM Iloilo Cinema), Science City of Munoz (Nueva Ecija), Baguio City and Roxas City.
Those 48 years observing the Licad life were first-rate music-making all the way.
I saw her human side as well, her vulnerability as a mother and how she transforms life’s pains into pieces of sounds in the realm of magnificence.
I remember her writing to my granddaughter on the cover of her book, “Tanya, I hope you take over your Lolo and present me in a concert at age 102.”
(In observance of Women’s Month, the National Commission for Culture and the Arts in association with the Office of Sen. Loren Legarda will present Cecile Licad with the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra under Grzegorz Nowak in an invitational concert at the Manila Metropolitan Theater on Tuesday, Mar. 19. Program consists of Tchaikovsky Piano Concerto No. 1 and Rachmaninoff’s Symphony No. 2.)