The Kundiman and the Kulintang and the Crafting of a Philippine art Music Imaginary

• In Event: Transmission, Adaptation and Transformation of Traditional Artistic Practices in Southeast Asia

Abstract

In this paper, I examine the construction of a Philippine art music imaginary through the repackaging of objects retrieved from folk traditions. I discuss the transformation of the kundiman from a popular Tagalog song form to a vehicle of revolutionary propaganda in the 19th century, and finally reified to a well crafted object of art approximating the European lieder idiom. I consider as well the case of the kulintang (gong chime), conscripted and reconfigured from a localized form of expression to an emblem of national and even Asian (non-western) identity. The kundiman and the kulintang represent two divergent approaches of engaging colonizing forces by two generations of musician-academics: the first from the early 20th through assimilation and appropriation, and the other from the middle of the century construed as a counter hegemonic episode. I locate these cultural transactions within the halls University of the Philippines College of Music, which this year is celebrating its centennial, considered as the premier institution of higher learning in music in the country, but more importantly, the primary site for the construction of a national art music corpus.

Author

• Verne de la Pena, University of the Philippines