MANILA, Philippines ? One of the most exciting attractions of the 40th-anniversary celebration of the Cultural Center of the Philippines is the Philippine debut of German cellist Alban Gerhardt, one of the world?s greatest living cellists.

Gerhardt skyrocketed to world recognition after his debut with the Berlin Philharmonic. That debut led him to playing with over 160 different orchestras conducted by such imminent personalities as Kurt Masur, Christoph von Dohnányi, Christoph Eschenbach, Sir Neville Marriner, Marek Janowski, Sir Colin Davis and Leonard Slatkin.

In the past two years, Gerhardt had acclaimed debuts with the Philadelphia Orchestra (J. Conlon); Boston Symphony, National Symphony and NDR Hamburg (all under CV Dohnányi); San Francisco Symphony (M. Tilson-Thomas); Los Angeles Philharmonic at Hollywood Bowl and Disney Hall (Y. Kreizberg and A. Boreyko); and Cleveland Orchestra (M.Hardt-Bedoya).

The cellist is hopping from one engagement to another and yet has time to fill up his blog and answer his cello fans.

The German cellist came to my attention through Cecile Licad, with whom she had played in New York and Europe.

Cecile kept on talking about a brilliant cellist who went to her New York apartment in skating board with his cello slung on his shoulder. As it turned out, that New York engagement led to the birth of the dream team of Gerhardt and Licad, whose festival appearances in Germany, USA and Canada stunned the most jaded music critics.

Fresh musicality

German critic Christof Jetzschke wrote about his first encounter with the Gerhardt-Licad team in the Schlossfestspiele music festival: ?The festival chamber music series was not short of perfect pairing this year. One such presented itself on Sunday evening in the Ordenssaal: cellist Alban Gerhardt and his partner at the piano, Cecile Licad. Words cannot really express what happened on this memorable and stirring evening. And there is also no sense in talking at large about the faultless technique of both artists, their clear sense of order, and their deeply inward, intense and variable tone, from Gerhardt?s immaculate fingering and Licad?s phenomenal touch.

?The listeners were also under high voltage: no restless moving back and forth on their chairs, no coughing or throat clearing, not even between the movements. Almost everywhere, there was nothing but happy faces. From highly sensitive to impulsive, from fragile to truly demonic was the performance of Beethoven?s Sonata in A Major. Gerhardt and Licad devotedly spun out the ravishing sounds of this work, combining its melodic streams with an enormous wealth of contrasts and convincing eloquence. The frenetic applause of the audience left no possibility of doubt that, on this evening, the festival owed a magical moment of chamber music to Gerhardt and Licad, whose performance could barely be improved in any way.?

Licad, whose birthday falls on Monday (May 11), is highly impressed by Gerhardt?s fresh musicality. Meanwhile, the cellist is all compliments for Licad.

Declared Gerhardt in an interview with a London-based music magazine: ?My favorite musician right now is Cecile Licad, a pianist who practically creates the pieces as she plays them. She studies the scores very carefully, but then she makes them her own and comes up with something new. For example, we rehearsed the Chopin sonata intensely a few years ago in preparation for our New York debut as a duo. During the performance, she did things completely differently from what we had discussed, but it worked!

?In the trio of the scherzo, musicians typically play it rather joyfully and with overflowing emotion. When we reached the trio, she played her part with barely any pedal and in a triple pianissimo, sounding like a harp, and this is how we played the entire trio, like a distant dream. It was so beautiful that I got chills while playing it. We didn?t talk about doing this before the concert, it just happened in the moment, and that?s the wonderful thing that can happen in a performance, if you leave room for improvisational interpretation.?

Gerhardt said Licad reminded him of the legendary British cellist Jacqueline Du Pre who once said, ?When a composer writes a piece, it?s his?when I play it, it?s mine.?

Radio performance

He said he didn?t necessarily agree, but he remained convinced about Licad?s incredible interpretative power. He recalled another memorable concert with Licad:

?When I recently played the Beethoven A Major Sonata with Cecile on Deutchland Radio, I worried about how the listeners might react, especially the producer of the show, who is a very serious classical-music connoisseur. I knew Cecile was doing some things that weren?t in the score, and I expected the German audience to tear us apart. After all, we Germans think we know how Beethoven is supposed to be played, but we don?t.

Cecile and I did some pretty unusual things, but I loved it, and I think Beethoven would have loved it. The producer loved it, too, fortunately. He told us afterward that Beethoven was inspired by the great French cellist J.L. Duport, when he wrote these sonatas, and he said that, for the first time in his life, he heard the French influence in the piece as we played it. That?s quite a compliment!?

When I got wind of the rave reviews, I wrote an emotional letter to Gerhardt and his London manager to please include Manila in his 2009 itinerary and to please lower his rate because obviously, a Third World country cannot afford his regular fees.

I referred Gerhardt?s manager to CCP?s Nes Jardin, who made the Licad-Gerhardt team a part of the CCP anniversary attractions on September 15-16.

From the e-mail came Gerhardt?s confirmation: ?Mr. Tariman, I have heard a lot of good things about the music lovers in your country from your friend Cecile and I can hardly wait to perform in Manila.?

The September 15 CCP program of Gerhardt and Licad include Beethoven?s Sonata for Cello and Piano in A, Op. 69; Beethoven?s Cello Sonata, Op. 5, No. 2, in G Minor; Janacek: Fairy Tales (1923 version) and a Prokofiev sonata.

For their joint concert with PPO, Gerhardt will play Tchaikovsky?s Roccoco Variations, and Licad will come up with a new dazzling piece, Prokofiev?s Piano Concerto

No. 3.

After Manila, Gerhardt and Licad will be heard again in Montreal, Canada, on December 6.

For complete details on Gerhardt?s worldwide engagements, call 0906-5104270 or e-mail musicnewsservice@yahoo.com.

Musical marriage

Namcya winner cellist Victor Michael Coo and Taiwanese pianist Yahsin Wu, who figured in a memorable cello recital in Manila last year, will be married at the White Memsdorial SDA Church in Los Angeles, California, on Thursday, May 14. Our best wishes for this highly talented musical couple!

From poet Marra Lanot (Cecile?s cousin) came this clarification about Licad?s musical genes: It?s not true that Cecile got her musical genes only from the Buencamino side. Her great grandfather, Tiburcio Licad, was a good clarinetist and flutist; her grandfather, Fermin Licad (father of Dr. Jesus Licad), was a choirmaster and a tenor, and, of course, all the Licad siblings play the piano, and that includes Cecile?s aunt (and Lanot?s mother) Gloria Licad Lanot.