Fratres ('Brothers')

This piece by Arvo Pärt is 11 minutes of pure, musical comfort. Written for violin and piano, the 1980 version is a set of variations upon the theme of the original Fratres. Pärt's music is characterised by simple but powerful melodies and a deep sense of tranquillity.

The piano plays a chant-like melody (from Pärt's Gregorian chant/ Russian orthodox church influences) to various accompaniments on the violin. With a calculated languor, the piano section is hymn-like, and remains in the lower registers, while the violin oscillates between passionately painful passages and peaceful stops. It is fascinating how the same ostinato like chant played by the piano can be transported to both unchartered levels of anguish and sections of quiet repose. This is all very skillfully done by the manipulation of the violin's timbre, from stormy arpeggios and tortured chords to aurorean broken chords.

Listening to his music is a very spiritual experience; every note is beautifully played (as demanded by the composer) till its voice and pitch are exhausted. Even passages of quiet solitude evoke the most passionate responses in their insidious, implicit pain. Yet, it is in musical wretchedness that the listener finds comfort - a universal sort of comfort, that alleviates any form of grief with its purity, its honest expression of humanity.

Additional description would be superfluous, and quite contrary to Pärt's compositional philosophy.

Listen to Fratres here.

Anon.