Francisco Santiago Francisco Santiago Santiago (January 29, 1889 – September 28, 1947) was a Filipino musician, sometimes called ''The Father of Kundiman Art Song''. Life Santiago was born in Santa Maria, Bulacan, Philippines, to musically minded peasant p ...

's Piano Concerto in B-flat minor was written in 1924 as his doctoral dissertation while he was studying at Chicago. It was premiered at Chicago on June 15, 1924, as a part of Santiago's graduation recital. He was assisted by his teacher

Heniot Levy Heniot Lévy (19 July 1879, in Warsaw – 16 June 1945) was an American composer, teacher, and pianist of Polish birth. A native of Warsaw, he trained at the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin with Oscar Raif and Karl Heinrich Barth, both pupils o ...

, who played the accompaniment. The premiere in Chicago and subsequent performances in Manila in 1925 were positively received; Santiago's professors and critics locally and abroad hailed the work as the composer's masterpiece.

Structure

The Concerto was cast in three movements, with each movement using folk songs as themes: # ''Moderato e Maestoso'' (based on ''Balitaw'') # ''Andante Amoroso'' (based on the ''

Kundiman Kundiman is a genre of traditional Filipino love songs. The lyrics of the kundiman are written in Tagalog. The melody is characterized by a smooth, flowing and gentle rhythm with dramatic intervals. Kundiman was the traditional means of sere ...

'' and ''Awit'') # ''Allegro Scherzando - Piu mosso'' (based on ''Leron Leron Sinta'' and ''Condansoy)''

Destruction and reconstruction

During the

Liberation of Manila The Battle of Manila ( fil, Labanan sa Maynila; ja, マニラの戦い; es, Batalla de Manila; ) was a major battle of the Philippine campaign of 1944–45, during the Second World War. It was fought by forces from both the United States and ...

in February 1945, constant bombing and fighting by the Americans and Japanese completely devastated the city. Historic buildings were burned along with countless treasures and documents stored within them. Francisco Santiago's compositions weren't spared – while escaping the bombings, a wooden cart full of his compositions (most of them unpublished) and other valuables caught fire near a church, destroying most of his compositions, including his Piano Concerto. In 1952, the Antipolo Church Reconstruction Committee planned a concert featuring Francisco Santiago's compositions. The Committee sponsored the reconstruction of several of Santiago's destroyed works, including the Concerto. The pianist and Santiago's former pupil

Juan Bañez ''Juan'' is a given name, the Spanish and Manx versions of ''John''. It is very common in Spain and in other Spanish-speaking communities around the world and in the Philippines, and also (pronounced differently) in the Isle of Man. In Spanish, t ...

spearheaded the reconstruction of the Concerto. With the help of Santiago's former colleagues

Antonino Buenaventura Col. Antonino Ramirez Buenaventura (May 4, 1904 – January 25, 1996) was a Filipino composer, conductor, and teacher. Biography Antonino Buenaventura was born on May 4, 1904 in Baliuag, Bulacan. He was born in a family of musicians; his fat ...

, Antonio Molina, and Felipe Padilla de Leon and others, they finished reconstructing the Concerto on September 12, 1952, and it was performed shortly after.

References

{{Reflist * Manuel, E. A. (1995). Santiago, Francisco. Dictionary of Philippine Biography (Vol. 4). Filipiniana Publications.

Santiago Santiago (, ; ), also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile as well as one of the largest cities in the Americas. It is the center of Chile's most densely populated region, the Santiago Metropolitan Region, whose ...

1924 compositions Compositions in B-flat minor