“La Passió de Crist” concert is a UP Symphonic Band performance with relevance to Holy Week. It will be held at the Cultural Center of the Philippines “Tanghalang Aurelio Tolentino” (Little Theatre) on April 7, 2017 Friday at 7:30 pm, to be conducted by its musical director/conductor Prof. Rodney Ambat of UP College of Music.
This concert will be the Philippine Premiere of Ferrer Ferran’s great masterpiece Sinfonía No. 2 “La Passió de Crist”, a three-movement large symphonic work for Band based on the writings of Jesus Christ’s life. The First Movement is about Birth, Slaughter of the Innocent and Baptism, The Second Movement is about The Three Temptations and the Third Movement is about Arrival at the Temple, The Last Supper, Arrest, Crucifixion, and Hope.
Richard Strauss’ Finale of Death and Transfiguration, Op. 24 will open the program, a tone poem that tackled the weighty subject of death. It is about the last hour of a man who has striven for the highest ideals, presumably an artist.
The concert will also feature another great masterpiece for symphonic band, The Divine Comedy Symphony by Robert W. Smith which is based on Dante Alighieri’s epic, The Divine Comedy. The Symphony consists of four movements, each following a distinct pattern. First Movement is Inferno, Second Movement is Purgatorio, Third movement is Ascencion, and Fourth Movement is Paradiso.
The performance will end with Give Us This Day by David Maslanka. It is a two-movement symphony in moderately slow and very fast, with the first movement deeply searching in character and the second is highly energized. Give Us This Day is of course from the Lord’s Prayer but the inspiration for this music is Buddhist. This piece has had hundreds of performances in the United States and around the world, and never fails to energize both bands and audiences.
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