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Showing posts from June, 2011

Spotlight on Herbert Zipper

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In Dachau, I saw the list of people incarcerated in that infamous concentration camp. There were poets, writers, artists, politicians, and also musicians.  Dachau happens to be one of those places where  Adolf Hitler began his Nazification program of Germany. Artist and intellectuals were among the very first to be identified and arrested -- True enough, after they burned books, they started burning people.  Going to the list of musicians one name really caught my attention, the name Herbert Zipper. I recall, in the rehearsal hall of the old Manila Symphony Orchestra (MSO I) at the Manila Metropolitan Theater,  two pictures hang on the wall,  that of  MSO founder, Alexander Lippay and Herbert Zipper the orchestra's famous Viennese conductor. The Tribune photo of Zipper - May 1939 A Viennese Jew Herbert Zipper was born April 24, 1904, to a prosperous Jewish family in the outskirt of Vienna. He studied composition and conducting under renowned names like Maurice Ravel and Richard S

On the Trail of Rizal's Relation with the Katipunan

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Rizal Stance? Primary sources and what others termed as established facts point out that José Rizal disowned the 1896 Revolution led by Andres Bonifacio and the Katipunan. In his manifesto to the Filipino people, written during his trial, he stated: "On my return from Spain, I learned that my name had been used as a war cry among some who were in arms". ... .  " From the beginning, when I had news of what was being planned, I opposed it, fought it, and demonstrated its absolute impossibility. this is the truth, and there are living witnesses of my words. I was convinced that the idea ( the revolution) was highly absurd and what was worse, would bring suffering. I did more. When later, in spite of my counsels, the movement broke out. I spontaneously offered not only my services but my life and even my name to be used in any manner  thought opportune in order to suppress the rebellion."   "Holding this ideas, I cannot do less than to condemn, and I do conde

"Look in my shoes" (Rizal@150)

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       Jose Rizal's mother(center), sisters and nieces In the morning of December 29, 1896, a day before his execution, José Rizal wrote a short note to his family. It was an urgent call of a man seeking to be heard by his family for the last time, a wish, hours before death, to see his loved ones for the final time. The note reads: "My dear Parents and Brother-Sisters, I would like to see each one of you before dying, though it may cause much pain. Come the most valiant. I have some important things to say. Your son and brother who loves you," That something inside the alcohol burner turned out to be the immortal untitled poem we now know as "Mi Ultimo Adios." But what was inside the shoes? In the late afternoon of the same day, the women members of the Rizal family came to Fort Santiago to bid goodbye. First was the mother, Doña Teodora Alonzo. They had only a few minutes to speak. It was said that they were held apart by the guards. That mother and son ended