Juegos del viento

Description

> Why are you called the Trio de Cologne ?

Well, to make a very long story short, the Trio was formed in 1992, originally with Ceca Madzarevic, when we were students at the Conservatory in Cologne. Although none of us live in Cologne now and Pablo had never even been there when he joined the Trio in 1996, the audiences were used to the name, we were used to the name and we decided to keep it.

> Why did you decide to form a guitar trio ?

There is a strange answer to this one too! In 1992, the producer at Artelier Music, a guitar aficionado, decided he wanted to have a guitar trio in his catalogue of artists. We had a trio contract before there was ever a trio. We locked ourselves in an attic for a month and recorded the album without ever having played a single concert together. The success was instant and overwhelming and even we were very happy with the result.

> What are the most interesting aspects of working in the Trio? The repertoire?

We find that making music together and touring can be great fun and very refreshing especially because all three of us have very busy schedules with our solo careers. The three of us are from very different musical backgrounds, Zoran from Eastern Europe, Laura from North America and Pablo from South America and that makes learning together, studying the repertoire and playing with the individual sound and ideas so enjoyable. We have the unique opportunity to learn repertoire that would not be available to us as soloists and to draw on the experiences of our different musical perspectives. When we first started the Trio, the repertoire was limited, but we have since transcribed a great deal of music and many composers have written wonderful pieces for us. In a sense, repertoire is being created all the time, which is very rewarding for us and, we hope, for future guitar trios as well.

> Who is responsible for the transcriptions? How are they done?

Transcriptions have to satisfy a number of criteria. First, the music must be suitable for the guitar and all of its parameters including, sound, colour, technique and musical texture. Some original settings are more appropriate to transcription on guitar than others. For instance, there is always a risk and difficulty with orchestral music. A good example is the Eight Easy Pieces by Igor Stravinsky, which is set for orchestra and has wonderfuld colour effects from the various wind and percussion instruments. It would have been difficult to transcribe the piece directly from this version, but the orchestral piece was already a transcription of the piece for four lutes and we were excited about its possibilities for three guitars. We’ve had great pleasure performing it ever since! A good transcription does not mean the exact translation from note to note on another instrument, but rather it is the one that sounds and speaks the language of the new instrument. We can say the same thing about the translation of a text from one language to another. A “word to word” translation doesn’t work! It is the ability to capture the essence of the music and transfer the musical intention from one instrument to another and, in some cases, the original can benefit greatly from transcription. A good example is Asturias by Isaac Albeniz, transcribed from piano to guitar. We are all responsible for making the transcriptions, one of us will put the notes on paper and then we give it life in the rehearsals, where we learn to understand the music in ensemble through hours of listening, studying, changing things and discovering the sweeter details of the music – the pleasure comes from the constant process of creating and recreating.

> In the midst of the current trend toward thematic CD’s, were you able to find a theme to unite all of these pieces?

Of course! It is a 20th century guitar Trio album – half original, half transcribed, half inspired by folk music and half of it “serious” music originating from Russia, Germany, Italy, Yugoslavia, France, South America, Bulgaria, India and Hungary. There is a nice story about the piece Trois morceaux en forme de poire by Erik Satie. Debussy and Satie were very passionate friends and one day, Debussy said to Satie, “You have some kind of genius. Now, as a friend, may I warn you that from time to time there is in your art, a certain lack of form”. After a couple of weeks, Satie brought the Trois morceaux en forme de poire to Debussy who asked, “Why such a title?”. Satie answered, “Why? Simply, mon cher ami, because you cannot criticize my pieces – if they are in the form of a pear, they cannot be without form!

Perhaps we could say that the CD program is “en forme de Trio de Cologne” …