The Chopin connection of Cecile Licad
Frédéric Chopin was born 215 years ago, and it is amazing how Cecile Licad connected with the Polish composer’s music as though she had known him all her life.
Understandably, some orchestras have made much of the fact that her recording of the composer’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in F Minor with André Previn and the London Philharmonic won the Grand Prix du Disque from Warsaw’s Chopin Society.
For the record, Licad was the first recipient of this CD citation from Poland’s Chopin specialists.
A second look at Licad’s phenomenal career shows that she had an excellent command and feel for playing Chopin as early as 11 years old.
Licad’s first competition piece was the same F minor concerto which won her the Manila Young Artists auditions when she was barely in her teens. She nearly didn’t make it in that competition because one jury member thought the Chopin concerto was not suited for an 11-year-old pianist.
The same Chopin concerto was Licad’s debut with the New York Philharmonic under Zubin Mehta in 1981. Like first teacher Rosario Picazo and Benjamin Tupaz, Licad’s Curtis teacher, Rudolf Serkin, also chose the Chopin concerto for her debut piece with the New York Philharmonic.
By coincidence, Licad played the first movement of this concerto as her audition tape for Curtis and was accepted without reservation.
The Chopin debut with the New York Philharmonic at the Avery Fisher Hall was one of Licad’s triumphant nights, and it was greeted with a standing ovation.
In her first recital in Poland, Licad used a Paderewski (noted Polish pianist and statesman) piano after which the critics hailed her as one of “the best Chopin interpreters in 15 years.”
She was also invited to sit in the jury of the Chopin competition, but her manager had unknowingly accepted a Hong Kong engagement scheduled at the same time.
On her second visit to Cebu in 1994, Licad played Chopin’s Sonata No. 2 for her finale number. For several seconds after the last notes had ended, the audience remained unmoving, so absorbed in the piece they felt it would break the trance if they applauded.
The Chopin B Flat Minor Sonata is also referred to as the “Funeral March” because of the third movement which is referred to as the most celebrated elegy in instrumental music.
Later playing the same “Funeral” sonata at the CCP, well-wishers overheard Mrs. Marcos telling Licad, “After that Chopin sonata, I am not afraid to die anymore. Cecile, you are a sorcerer of an interpreter.”
It is understandable that Licad connected with her best friend—filmmaker Marilou Diaz Abaya—in this movement which is about sorrow giving way to torment.
Among those who raved over Licad’s B Flat Sonata was the late National Artist for Architecture Leandro V. Locsin who passed away two months after that 1994 recital.
A Polish poet-critic complained that it was hard to purchase Licad’s all-Chopin recording in France (he eventually found a copy through the internet). He wrote to Licad: “Your Chopin is absolutely marvelous; it’s like listening to Him resuscitated! You should record as much as possible of his works! Please, you must do it for humanity! It’s so terribly rare to hear such an interpretation, absolutely adequate to the message of the music.”
When Licad first played Chopin’s Twelve Études Op. 25 in Washington, D.C. some years back, the Washington Post critic noted that throughout the evening, Licad’s “fierce intelligence illuminated the emotional core of Chopin.”
But nothing beats the erudite words of Philadelphia Inquirer critic Daniel Webster in his review of one Licad recital: “We hear a different Chopin from what our elders heard. The music is more direct, edgy, and muscular. The poetry is there, but the urgency of it is even more clear-eyed, more intense. The subtle differences have emerged as all the elements of life have changed around the music.”
Licad will play Chopin’s Piano Concerto No. 2 on Sept. 24, 6:30 p.m. at The Met with the PPO under Maestro Grzegorz Nowak. In the Sept. 27 to Oct. 11 concerts from Baguio Country Club to Pinto Art Gallery to MiraNila to UP Iloilo and Molo Church and ending at Virac, Catanduanes, Licad will end her outreach concert with Chopin Scherzo No. 1.
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Editor’s note: This article was dictated by Pablo Tariman to his grandson, from his hospital bed at the Philippine Lung Center.
