Philippine classical music

The Filipino kundiman is the voice of yearning love in song, plaintive in its lyrical heartbreak and yet transcendent through melodic expressiveness.

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The kundiman came to the fore as an art song at the end of the nineteenth century and early part of the twentieth, when Filipino composers such as Francisco Santiago and Nicanor Abelardo formalized the musical structure and sought poetry for their lyrics, blending verse and music in equal parts.

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The melody and sentiment of the kundiman tends not only toward the melancholy but also the cheerful, and the commitment of the heart to passion is celebrated in every piece. The singer of the kundiman expresses the pain and beauty of love felt by every listener, for the kundiman is not merely entertainment but an embodiment of collective emotion.

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Endowed with such power, the kundiman naturally came to serve as a vehicle for veiled patriotism in times of colonial oppression, in which the love for a woman actually symbolized the love of country and desire for freedom.

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