Fratres

Fratres, meaning “brothers” in Latin, is a composition by the Estonian composer Arvo Pärt exemplifying his tintinnabuli style of composition. It is three-part music, written in 1977, without fixed instrumentation — a “mesmerising set of variations on a six-bar theme combining frantic activity and sublime stillness that encapsulates Pärt’s observation that ‘the instant and eternity are struggling within us’.”

Structurally, Fratres consists of a set of eight or nine chord sequences separated by a recurring percussion motif. The sequences themselves follow a pattern, and while the progressing chords explore a rich harmonic space, they appear to have been generated by means of a simple formula. Authorized versions of Fratres are as follows:

Among these, the most prominent are: for strings and percussion (1983/1991); for string quartet (1985/1989); and, especially, for violin and piano (1980). The versions for viola and piano (2003) and cello and piano (1989) are almost exactly the same as that for violin and piano, whereas the version for string quartet is close to the version for cellos (1982).

Jazz pianist Aaron Parks incorporated elements of Fratres into his composition "Harvesting Dance," heard on his album Invisible Cinema and on Terence Blanchard's album Flow.

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