Audience taken back through time 500 years ago
By Pigeon Lobien
BAGUIO
CITY – A group of out of time seven musicians with ancient instruments,
garbed in clothes pretty much in fashion during the time of Queen Elizabeth I
are on their way to the Metro to conquer the Manilans – with their music, after
Baguio.
Unlike their countrymen who wanted to take Manila some 500 years ago to
expand Japanese rule in the Pacific region, the Friends of Collegio from
Amakusa, Kamomoto prefecture of Japan, a seven-musician ensemble want only to
share the music which the Christians of Japan have loved for more than 500
years.
Led by Hirayama Teruaki, a master craftsman specializing in 16th-century
European instruments, the ensemble wants to take the San Agustin Church in
Intramuros, Manila on July 23, by storm after their successful performance at
the Saint Louis University Center for the Culture and Arts last July 21.
The group was in Baguio on the invitation of the Japanese association in
northern Luzon as part of 10th year Filipino-Japanese friendship. Their visit
and sharing of the Japanese music is also a part of the Tanabata festival, a
summer festival in Japan which is celebrated in the city every July since 2010
with the help of the Japanese embassy.
The encore, a renaissance rendition of Bahay Kubo nearly brought the
house down during their afternoon performance as part of the 10th year
Philippine – Japanese friendship day and the “Tanabata Festival”.
Hirayama is
armed with a self-made “viola de gamba”, a ribbed musical instrument popular in
Europe in the 16th to 18th century played between the legs (gamba is legs in
Italian). Made of wood, with no modern or plastic component, the viola has
strings made from ox gut, “that is the strongest material the renaissance
instrument makers could get,” said Hirayama through interpreter Julian Claresby
after the performance on Sunday.
Claresby is an Englishman married to a Kamamoto lass, who served as
master of ceremony during the two-hour performance on Sunday.
When the ensemble failed to bring their virginal, a 16th to 17th century
harpsichord-like instrument (piano-like), Hirayama fashioned a smaller version
which he did, amazingly, in just two months, Claresby said.
“The airline won’t allow us to bring it here, because it is too big,”
said Claresby referring to the ensemble’s original virginal, whose insides were
delicately painted with sakura, while its cover the forested coasts of Amakusa.
Both were painted by the over 60 years old Hirayama, who dabbles in painting.
The other members of the ensemble are Matsumura Fumiyo, Kido Hiroyoshi,
Uwaguchi Hiroko, Yasou Nobuko, Harada Aya, and Yosioko Nagisa,
Matsumura
Fumiyo sits and plays for the ensemble like a typical lady in the Elizabethan
court in England or the Medici’s in Florence, Italy during the time of Leonardo
da Vinci.
Kido Hiroyoshi, garbed in black hose and doublet with a feathered hat,
plays the lute, a mandolin-like stringed instrument that Hirayama painstakingly
made for Kido.
Uwaguchi Hiroko plays the tabor, a small drum that has been in use since
the Medieval (pre-16th century).
Three female
musicians play the recorder. A renaissance flute: Yasou Nobuko who is also the
group’s main vocalist; Harada Aya, who plays also the gothic harp, small harp
used by troubadours since the middle ages, and crumhorn, a J-shaped woodwind
instrument of German origin; and, Yosioko Nagisa, who also plays the crumhorn.
Harada and
Yosioko are also back-up singers to Yasou.
Yasou, Harada, and Yosioko during their demonstration of the recorder
played the “Voltes V” opening song with Yasou on vocals that sent the crowd,
mostly young music students, into a frenzy.
Listen, Hirayama, who can barely speak English, said to fully appreciate
their music, one must really listen.
“Modern
(musical) instruments are loud, even those used in classical performances like
an orchestra because the instruments are (partly) made of plastic,” he said
through Claresby.
He said his instruments may not be as sturdy as the modern ones but they
produce notes that are pure, the tonality is much better.
“Performances by a group of musicians then were not loud,” he said.
The ensemble played popular tunes in the 16th century when the Tensho
embassy of Christian Japanese nobles went to Europe in the 1580s and brought
back the same to Amakusa and Shimabara in Nagasaki.
Shimabara’s
promotional map “Come travel through time, through Minamishimabara’s history, a
past interwoven with European cultural influences.”
The SLU concert orchestra closed the show with two anime (Japanese
cartoons) themes: Sakura Sakura and Voltes V, which were both received
positively by a predominantly anime crazed young audience.
Minamishimabara
(Shimibara of old) in Nagasaki and Amakusa in Kumamoto are the westernmost
prefectures of Japan. These localities have seaports that served as an entry point
of Christian missionaries led by Francis Xavier who converted the locals of
Shinto-Buddhists belief in the 1540s.
When Ieyasu Tokugawa started the 260-year reign of the Tokugawa shoguns
in 1600, the Christians of western Japan were persecuted that led to the
Shimabara – Amakusa revolt of 1637 killing more than 27,000 locals, mostly
peasants, including children.
The peasants revolted because the Shimabara rulers raised taxes to build
their castle and help the Tokugawa rulers in their quest to gain Manila.
As a result, the Christians either went into hiding or fled the country.
Japan was closed from the rest of the world after that. -- PNA
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