Hosanna, Filio David (2024)

COMPOSER’S NOTES

My good friend, Dr. Miggi Angangco commissioned me for this piece because of our common background as singers in the International Bamboo Organ Festival held in the Philippines every February. This festival is one of the few places in the Philippines where Renaissance and Baroque works can be played as authentically as they could be due to the Bamboo Organ being 200+ years old, a true Baroque organ made by the Spanish Priest Diego Cera to imitate the kind of organs seen in Spain at the time, except, of course, largely made from bamboo. Aside from Renaissance and Baroque works, my colleagues and I performed different kinds of “Villancicos” which is a genre of Spanish vocal music which the colonies have all inherited. Though they may typically be about Christmas or any other religious subject, “Villancicos” may also have secular subjects that describe daily, rural life.

Though the Philippines is no exception to the influence of Spanish music, “Villancicos” remain to be less known and not as well documented as other Spanish genres. Only through the efforts of very few people do we even know that they truly even exist and now we know how some of them may have sounded like. Dr. Angangco shared a transcription of one of these “villancicos” (Hosanna Filio David) with me and it’s thanks to a foreign priest assigned to Las Piñas that we have transcripts of such songs! A Belgian, Leo Renier was initially assigned to Las Piñas for 25 years,where he met his future wife, Donna. During those times, Leo was the conductor of what was later to become known as the Las Piñas Boys’ Choir while Donna served as the titular organist of the Bamboo Organ. After he left the parish, he stayed on as Executive Director of the International Bamboo Organ Festival.

It was Renier who notated some of these “villancicos” for he found them fascinating. Though typically, villancicos were in Spanish, but Hosanna Filio David and Leo’s other transcriptions were in Latin. They date from the last decades of the 19th century. There was a time when there might have been Spanish villancicos here even though the Spaniards were opposed to teaching the Filipino Indios their language. According to Leo, the Spaniards initially used both Spanish and Latin songs in the mass but at some point (presumably due to their prejudice against the Indios), Spanish songs were banned and only Latin songs were kept. Another layer of prejudice against the Filipino masses is that only educated singers were allowed to sing in the mass (no congregational singing), further limiting the access of the Indio masses to languages and arts. This limitation in singing meant that sometimes there would only be one singer left and one organist per parish and that is exactly how Leo witnessed Hosanna Filio David being sung.

Prior to my interview and discussion with Leo, I admit I had many wrong assumptions. You see, I did not grow up Catholic in this largely Catholic nation. I grew up Protestant, however, I do come from a large family of marching band musicians. I learned to play the baritone/euphonium, and as young as 10 I was participating in local town fiestas, parades, and serenatas (evening concerts). So I came into this commission thinking I know precisely what to do and make it sound like a religious feast: a solemn mass followed by a hearty, festive celebration. Hearing the bleak history from Leo lightly dampened my initial resolve, though. I did not know that the oppression in church music created the limitations I’ve just learned. Having been brought up in marching band music, I had thought Hosanna Filio David would be something festively sung and celebrated by the whole community. Though I was slightly perturbed by my findings, I found myself with greater resolve to simply write the piece how I would like it, and I already knew what I wanted.

In writing this music, I wanted to both preserve the majority of the original as well as highlight and exaggerate elements considered traditional in Filipino religious and festive music. We start with a solemn and even dark-sounding minor tonality which then later gets transformed into a bright, fanfare-like major “hosanna”. This minor-major shift in tonality is typical of other Filipino music genres such as the Kundiman (a kind of Filipino Art-song). I leaned into this solemnity and exaggerated it slightly by highlighting the melody with the other voices acting completely as accompaniment. I then followed this up with a simple canon of the initial part of the melody in a slow, meditative and almost atmospheric vibe. In Filipino Fiestas (which are feasts for Saints or other religious remembrances), worshippers gather in the church to pray, sing, and worship. Outside the church, the marching bands hold their parades and evening concerts. The “benedictus” for me acts as the beginning of this festive section. Rich harmonies in thirds abound right until the end where we get the full choir in divisi to really bring in the community in worship.

In writing this particular style, I encountered certain writing “errors” which I kept in instead of “correcting”. I found that these “errors” are what precisely gave this piece the character it should have. I fully intended for this piece to be the most nostalgic and traditional sounding it could possibly be, even if in exaggeration. In a particular part of the music, I maintained strict adherence to the parallel thirds even though there should be a chromatic adjustment due to the harmony. This kind of “error” exists in many religious marching band music written by local band masters who had limited education. Though I had to make many changes to how the text used melismas (originally, there was just too much melisma!), I kept in how certain words were syllabicated, and again this is because these kinds of “errors” are things that people sang, and how they were taught, and eventually how they taught others, passing them on as simply part of the style.