Music must be the international language because everybody, regardless of nationality or cultural background, responds to its rhythms, to its pitch and range.

Others say music is the “speech of angels” with charms that soothe even the savage beasts.

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At The Podium in the Ortigas Center in Pasig last Saturday we had the nicest of our time enjoying the special show co-produced by the Heritage Institute Center.

Titled, Canciones Espanol y Filipino, the two-hour show featured as the title suggests, Spanish and Philippine folksongs, guitar music, and patriotic songs.

The folksongs rendered by schooled singers who were accompanied on the piano and the guitar, expressed something about the ways of truly Filipino life, both half-forgotten and revived. They were music that have endured and handed down through generations through what they call oral tradition.

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The show opened with Spanish folksongs, circa 1800s, with “Adios Nina Ingrata”/Trance Cruel rendered by the charming Nenen Espina, soprano, and the equally beautiful soprano Naomi Sison, with the accompaniment of Ruben Reyes’ guitar.

The opening number was followed by Despedida sung by Nenen and Ho Hay Penas by Naomi, to the delight and self-indulgences of both local and foreign audiences.

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The kundiman, Francisco Santiago’s Madaling Araw, was dramatized in the total range characteristic of a fine tenor by the handsome Bikolano Raymond Roldan with Peter Porticos on the piano.

Nicanor Abelardo’s Nasaan Ka Irog assumed a new range of tonal quality again with Raymond Roldan’s full, round, and illustrative rendition with the accompaniment also of Portico on the piano.

The guitarist Ruben Reyes also did a solo of F. Tarrega’s Recuerdos del Alhambra Valse to the audiences’ prolonged applause of approval.

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Included in the early evening presentation were Arr. Lucio D. San Pedro’s Leron-Leron Sinta, a typical folksong of long ago, sung by statuesque Naomi Sison, soprano, with Peter Porticos on the piano.

Nenen Espina, a Visayan lass of kayumanging kaligatan personality type, performed with her Pobreng Alindahaw piece with gusto.

Naomi Sison came back on stage with the rendition of the all-time favorite, Mutya ng Pasig, and again Nenen displaying her patriotic fervor with Resti Umali’s Lupang Hinirang.

In emphasizing the role of the group as ensemble, they sung together for the finale Ernani Cuenco’s Kalesa, Gaano Ko Ikaw Kamahal, and Bayan Ko in the solid quality of their voices that, instinctively, made the audiences respond in thunderous applause in appreciation of a great show.

(zhern_218@yahoo.com)