It’s not clear where or when Beneting Legarda’s love of music began. My guess is it’s in his DNA.
Beneting’s parents were among those who led in organizing a concert amid the ruins of Intramuros immediately after the war. His mother, Trinidad Fernandez Legarda, believed that the magic of classical music would lift the morale and spirit of her countrymen. Down to Beneting’s generation, the family has supported concerts and orchestras—the Manila Symphony Orchestra (MSO), since its founding in 1926.
A first cousin of his (and a second cousin of mine), Filomena “Menet” Legarda, says the sponsorship most probably goes all the way back to the matriarch of the Legarda family, Filomena Roces Legarda. It was she, having studied piano herself, who encouraged a family interest in music; apparently, she succeeded.
It was, however, Menet’s father, Pepito Legarda, who became the accomplished one—a concert pianist. Menet herself, because she not only listened to her father practice but also attended his concerts, became steeped in classical music and became a habitual concertgoer. Her mother, Tita Charito, also had a natural talent for playing the piano and played by oido, by ear, with no formal training.
Beneting’s own passion for music and the arts seems to define him more today than anything else despite having lived a long and distinguished life of varied interests.
It was in economics and banking and finance that he had a brilliant career. And it is as an economic historian and author of prewar and wartime books and other writings that he is best known to academics and scholars.
Nearly six feet
Beneting easily stands out, physically; he is nearly six feet, the surprise in a family of short but confident boys, and has a voice that projects a laughter that seems to come from an opera-trained diaphragm. I know when he is in the audience; his laugh always comes at the right moment and contaminates the otherwise shy and repressed members of the audience.
He likes to ask the first question to get an open forum going. It’s also easy to spot him, because he dresses in his own distinct style—a combination of the past and the present with some comfortable practicality. His trademark for formal affairs is his bow tie. Occasionally he surprises everyone by wearing something plaid.
Beneting is also called Benet, thus christened probably by his American friends from Georgetown and Harvard, from whence he comes with sterling marks.
He found his perfect match in Angelita Guanzon, an outstanding student who went on to become a brilliant pediatrician and a music connoisseur herself. They married in 1971.
Her social projects somehow got her interested in numismatics. She became president of the Philippine Numismatic and Antiquarian Society when Beneting was Central Bank deputy governor.
Together they set up the Central Bank Money Museum and cofounded the museum’s journal, Barrilla, of which she became co-editor.
They have a daughter, Isabel, unsurprisingly a magna cum laude from Harvard. She’s an anesthesiologist practicing in the US, in the Boston area. She and her husband gave them two grandchildren. At their births, Beneting was still with the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the Philippine embassy. Lita was only too happy to be able to help her daughter take care of the children while she went to medical school.
Once back home, she turned out to be an avid campaigner, too, and headed a group of lady volunteers for Noynoy.
Valiant fight
After a valiant fight against cancer, Lita passed on in 2015. It was at her wake that I found out what an outstanding woman she was and how proud and fond Beneting was of her. This was another part of Beneting I had not fathomed. But then, how could so refined and cultured a man not be a true romantic?
If the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan built the Taj Mahal as a tribute to his wife, Muntaz Mahal, and if poets like Byron and Rossetti immortalized their love of poetry, Beneting dedicated a concert to Lita, featuring her favorite composer, Brahms. Menet recounts that, on long trips in the US, Beneting and Lita would drive listening to Brahms. A quartet from the Manila Symphony Orchestra played during the two nights of her wake.
On Oct. 14, Benet gave a grant with a few other sponsors and invited family and friends to the MSO concert dedicated to his wife. Menet thought he was especially dressed in a barong that was creaseless, with a tastefully modest sheen, and buttoned to the collar. When she complimented him, he seemed surprised that he needed yet to remind her, in Spanish, for whom the concert was: “Este concierto es para Lita.”
It was, indeed, a very special night. The concert was part of a series—Leadership and Creativity—of the Manila Symphony Orchestra season, 2017-2018, featuring “Masterworks: Mostly Brahms.” The German Christoph Poppen, who was familiar with Philippine orchestras since 1980, conducted. He was a delight to watch. He and guest pianist Ingrid Santamaria donated their professional fees to the Artists for a Better Future Foundation.
It was the first time Ingrid, a favorite of ours, played in public the Brahms Concerto No. 2, a difficult and quite demanding piece—upon Beneting’s request, I imagine. Ingrid never ceases to amaze. She has always played without sheet music, and so it was that night, no matter if it was her first public Brahms. She looked as regal and as strikingly beautiful as ever.
We were similarly struck by the freshness and beauty of Suite from Simoun, written for a ballet, by the Filipino composer Jude Edgard Balsamo, a rapidly rising star in the musical world.
The concert was, indeed, a generous sharing of Beneting’s love for Lita.