23 VASSILENA SERAFIMOVA ∙ QUATUOR ARDEO Fratres (“Brothers”) marks a profound break with his earlier scores. For the Estonian musician, the death of the English composer Benjamin Britten (1913 – 1976) was a kind of revelation that inspired this music. The work begins like a hymn. With each repetition of the theme, it is transposed one tone lower than before. This meditation, contemplative in mood, is animated by the tintinnabulation (another expression unique to Pärt), of the inner voices, which play only the notes of a minor triad. “The idea of combining modernity and tradition finds its full meaning in a work like Fratres. We are fascinated by the way this music relates to the notion of time, as if suspended,” the performers confide.
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