On Saturday, April 6,2002, The Falla Trio presented a concert program to an enthusiastic crowd of concert goers which nearly filled the SOU Music Recital Hall. The concert, sponsored by the Rogue Valley Symphony as a fund raising event, was a definite boon to the Jefferson Classical Guitar Society. Not only were we treated to an excellent display of guitar ensemble at the virtuoso level, but had an opportunity to work up close and personal in a masterclass setting with internationally acclaimed guitarist, composer, and trio member Dusan Bogdanovic. Mr. Bogdanovic joined with the other two members, Kenton Youngstrom and Terry Graves to present a wide ranging and extremely interesting program.

Firstly, why "The Falla Trio" and not "The de Falla Trio"? After all, their namesake is the great 20th century Spanish composer, Manuel de Falla. Well as it turns out, to quote Percy Scholes in his invaluable "Oxford Companion to Music", "To write of 'de Falla', as is frequently done, is incorrect; unless the Christian name precedes, the surname should be simply given as 'Falla'; this is Spanish usage". Secondly, why do trio members, Dusan Bogdanovic and Terry Graves exhibit excellent posture in assuming their traditional classical guitar sitting position with their guitars resting upon an elevated left leg, while Kenton Youngstrom sits with his guitar on a partially elevated right leg. After a scientific survey of three classical guitar instructors, I have determined that 99 out of 100 classical guitar instructors would insist that their students avoid this "right leg up" position like the plague. Yet here is Mr. Youngstrom playing brilliantly, with a relaxed and fluid technique and beautiful tone. It just goes to show, you never can tell. I am thinking that with his extensive background in the folk, blues and jazz idioms, he ultimately felt more at ease adapting his classical technique to, what was for him, a more familiar right leg up position. Whatever his process in arriving at this position, the result is very impressive*. (see footnote for further insight)

The Falla Trio's wide ranging program might best be described as eclectic. They always begin and end their programs with a work by Falla and in between we got everything from a Bach fugue to a Yugoslavian look at "Turkey in the Straw". On this evening the trio began with an exciting transcription of the "Miller's Dance" from Falla's ballet "The Three Cornered Hat". Falla uses the orchestra in this ballet to imitate the rasgueados and picados of the flamenco guitarist's "cante hondo" (deep song). This music sounds so natural coming from guitars that it is hard to imagine it performed any other way.

The Falla Trio followed the Falla with a trio sonata by J. S. Bach. A trio sonata (in the Baroque tradition) was, oddly enough, written for four instrumentalists. Two players were responsible for handling the melodic parts. These were usually played on some combination of violin, flute, recorder, or oboe. The other two players comprised what was known as the "basso continuo" and usually consisted of harpsichord with either cello or bassoon. In basso continuo, the bass instrument (cello) plays a written out bass part. The harpsichord player plays the bass part as well, but in addition must "realize" a chordal accompaniment from a set of symbols written underneath the bass notes. Interestingly, this is much the same process a jazz musician goes through when improvising from a "jazz chart". A jazz chart is a written tune with chord symbols placed over the notes. The arrangement for this concert kept two players on the melodic material while the third handled the basso continuo alone. As a side note, I paid a bit extra to get "good" seats and ended up in the center but all the way in the back row. As a consequence, I found it difficult to follow the individual lines of Bach's rich contrapuntal textures because of the reverberation of the hall. I'm sure if I had been sitting closer, I would have had more of the immediate sound of the guitars. Next time, I will know better.

For the next set of pieces, a selection of three of the "Twelve Spanish Dances" for piano by Enrique Granados, Mr. Bogdanovic stepped off stage and Mr. Youngstrom and Mr. Graves performed as a duet. The first of the three Spanish Dances was the famous No. 5, "Playera". It was originally transcribed for solo guitar by Francisco Tarrega, near the turn of the last century and was made famous through performances and recordings by Andres Segovia and any number of guitarists after him. It works remarkably well for solo guitar although as a duet, it gives a greater freedom of expression to the player who takes the melody. The next Spanish Dance performed was the beautiful and mysterious No. 2, "Oriental". Inspite of the title, this work is more reminiscent of the French impressionists,
Debussy, Revel, et.al.) than it is of the orient. The final Spanish Dance was No6, "Jota". This wonderful work starts with a slow, quiet, simple but rhythmic figure which is repeated over and over and over, each time getting louder and faster until it explodes into a passionate flurry of rasgueados (trilling chords in the original piano version). It then transitions into a dreamy impressionist soundscape middle section before returning to a repeat of the first section for a stirring conclusion.

The final work on the first half of the program was a contemporary work entitled "Women's Dance" by the Bulgarian pianist/composer Milcho Leviev. In this work we get our first taste of the Falla Trio in an improvisatory role. Unlike in the past, it is unusual these days to hear improvisation in a classical music concert. "Women's Dance" actually calls for an improvisation in the middle section with the added challenge of doing it in five beats per measure (divided three beats plus two beats). The piece has been described as a "Bulgarian blues".

The second half of the concert began with "Pastorale No. 1", a composition by trio member Dusan Bogdanovic. Designed as a meditation, it (in the composer's words) "blends Near- and Middle-Eastern rhythmic and melodic influences with sixteenth-century western European contrapuntal practices. Although the inter-relatedness of the melodic and rhythmic content is very precisely controlled, all three parts sound as if improvised. The highly ornamented melody part is reminiscent of music played on an oud (the pear-shaped Middle-Eastern precursor to the European lute), with occasional string bends to reach notes between the notes of the piano."

Next on the program was Samuel Barber's "Excursions". My primary association with Samuel Barber is his luscious "Adagio for Strings" and I can't imagine how the two works could be much different. "Excursions" is a set of three pieces portraying Barber's perspective on Amercian folk music. Though the program didn't say, I imagine that the work was originally written for solo piano. The first of the three pieces sounded like a jazz improvisation, while the second had a more bluesy feel. The third, though more modern sounding, had a liberal sprinkling of blues notes which helped to unify the three pieces.

We moved easily into the next set of pieces, which gave us further insights into the inner workings of Mr. Bogdanovic's wonderfully fertile musical imagination. In his "Three Straws", he gives us three different perspectives ("Straws") on the American folk song, "Turkey in the Straw". Again, in the words of the composer, "The first is an energetic exposition of the theme with re-harmonizations, countermelodies, rhythmic punctuations, and a humorous non-ending. The second straw is contemplative, with lyrical passages, polymetric counterpoint, and a quote of Foster's "Old Folks at Home". The "last straw" features parallel perpetual motion with close canonic writing, and contains one of the longest uninterrupted slur passages in the repertoire."

The penultimate set of pieces recognizes the contributions which American music has made to the art of improvisation through the development of the jazz idiom. In the distant past, improvisation was an important aspect of a classical musician's training and it was not unusual to hear extemporizations in concert programs. By leaning on their experience with jazz improvisation, the Falla Trio returns us to that tradition with offerings of a couple of improvisations based upon jazz standards.

The final work returned us to from whence we came with "Dance of the Miller's Wife" by Manuel de Falla. This fandango is from the ballet "The Three Cornered Hat, as was the first piece on the program and is in the more lyrical style of northern Spain.

Perhaps the best word to describe the program of this outstanding guitar trio is "eclectic" in that it reflected the three players' wide range of interests and experience. For a moment, through their concert, we were able to participate in their journey.

*footnote: Grant Ruiz talked to Kenton Youngstrom after the concert and had the following comment about Kenton's sitting position. "I noted his more flamenco posture and common use of a flamenco thumb. Turns out he was greatly influenced by Pepe Romero, one of his teachers, who is very adept at fusing classical and flamenco techniques and sounds. If you watch Pepe play with his family's quartet, you'll notice that he sits differently, with the bouts on each leg rather than the lower bout between the two legs. This gives him a shallower neck angle which is often used by modern flamenco guitarists."

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