Violin Recital: "Life Let's Cherish"

Violin Recital 

Life Let's Cherish

by Henry Farmer in 2 Variations

Dr Abe V Rotor

Author  plays Life Let's Cherish by Henry Farmer in 2 variations, 

accompanied by Miss Lory Mercader in 1958 at Rosary College 

in Vigan, now St. Paul College Ilocos Sur.    

                     Other compositions of Henry Farmer* 

• The Last Rose of Summer
• Home Sweet Home
• The Blue Bells of Scotland
• The Harp that Once Thro' Tara's Halls

Dr Rotor was in his senior year in high school at the Colegio de la Imaculada Concepcion (now Divine Word College of Vigan) at the time of his violin recital at Rosary College beside the CIC campus. His tutor was Mr  Evaristo Bolante from nearby municipality of Caoayan, birthplace of President Elpidio Quirino.

NOTE: The "graduation" equivalence after finishing a set of music lessons, like in violin and piano, is having to give a recital, or to demonstrate what one has learned (and developed as skill) in front of an audience. In the 1500s, recital was strictly a legal term, the "statement of relevant facts," but the musical meaning had come into use by the 1800s. The root is the Latin word recitare, "repeat from memory." That's the reason one has to play without reading notes in a recital.

*Henry Farmer (13 May 1819 – 25 June 1891) was a British organist and composer based in Nottingham, self-taught as a musician, but undertook some study in harmony with Henry Bishop. He played violin in the orchestra when Felix Mendelssohn conducted his oratorio Elijah premiered in Birmingham at the Triennial Music Festival on 26 August 1846. He was organist of High Pavement Chapel in Nottingham and  conductor of the Nottingham Harmonic Society. 

"The family that plays music together makes a Home, Sweet Home."

Author plays with children Anna on the keyboard and Marlo with 

the flute popular songs, including "oldies", and contemporary 

pieces.  The family conducts children's art workshop in drawing 

and painting cum basic music lessons. 

The author accompanies a centenarian, Auntie Constancia Rocero Andino, sing old Ilocano songs, almost unknown to the younger generations, like O Naraniang a Bulan (Oh, Bright Moon), Ti Balasang No Mabaketan (When a Woman Turns Old Maid), Bannatiran (Kingfisher), Ti Ayat ti Maysa a Lakay (The Love of an Old Man), Diay Baybay (The Sea or Across the Sea) Dungdungguen Kanto (Lullaby, classical in the category of Brahms' Lullaby and Lucio San Pedro's Ugoy ng Duyan).  The conservation and revival of ethnic and classical music is a major challenge in musicology today.  

The author entertains guests at the Living with Nature Center,

San Vicente, Ilocos Sur. Nature's music - birds singing, crickets fiddling,

goats bleating, sounds of breeze, drizzle, ripples and waves lapping - have 

therapeutic effect to ease tension and anxiety in postmodern living.~

Cassette case of a collection of musical compositions played 

on the violin by the author,   

Life Let's Cherish in 2 Variations by Henry Farmer

Violin Recital of Dr Abe V Rotor

March 9, 1958 Rosary College (SPCIS)

(Facsimile of the Original Composition of Henry Farmer)

 

 

 

Also on display at the Living with Nature Center, San Vicente, Ilocos Sur, are facsimiles of other original compositions by Henry Farmer, WF Ambrosio, and Filipino composers Abelardo, Santiago, Buenaventura, Molina, Pelayre, Valdez and others.~