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'We Are One' : The Music of Obama's Inauguration
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Something from Guy!
Ornamentation and Improvisation Workshop with Pamela Thorby
Daphnis: First of a Kind
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The Importance of Western Popular Music in the Redevelopment of Cambodia
Arvo Pärt's Fratres
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Desmond Clarke
This term, the Chimera Ensemble is presenting a concert of Finnish and Estonian music, including Fratres by Arvo Pärt. Fratres is a perfect example of Pärt's 'Tintinnabulatory' style; a unique musical language where melody is limited to moving round a tonal or modal scale, and harmony comprises the notes of a tonic chord. While seemingly limited, Pärt describes his technique as one 'which evokes the pealing of bells, [their] complex but rich sonorous mass of overtones, the gradual unfolding of patterns implicit in the sound itself, and the idea of a sound that is simultaneously static and in flux.'2
Fratres is a piece with no defined instrumentation – it exists as a set of materials and a structure. However, Pärt has produced realisations for various ensembles, including string orchestra, violin and piano, and cello and piano. The version being played in the Chimera concert is one for any multiple of four cellos, originally realised for the 12 cellos of the Berlin Philharmonic, and played in the Chimera concert by the 12 cellos of the University of York Music department.
Structurally the work is in a very simple permutational variation form, where a 'theme' or cell is repeated at different points within a harmonic framework. The cell in question comprises six phrases, the third one being a full statement of the melodic material. In the third phrase the two 'melodic' voices (those realising the scalic roles) play C harmonic minor scales descending in compound thirds, displaced half way through by an octave (see diagram). These voices are in unison a tenth apart. An inner voice plays the notes of a G minor triad, ordered to avoid cross relations between the B-flats of the triad and the B-naturals of the scales. The lowest voice holds a drone of G and D throughout the piece, perhaps anchoring the harmony on G, though with no tonal bias toward major or minor.
The second phrase is derived from the third by removing the two central chords, and the central chords of that are removed to give the first. The melodic material of the fourth, fifth and sixth phrases is simply a retrograde version of that of the first, second and third respectively. This results in a gradual exposition of material culminating in the third phrase, followed by the same material in retrograde. The retrograde statements give weight to the idea that Pärt is using a permutational (or non-hierarchical) method of construction, as neither ordering has a dominant role. The chords within the phrases are not treated permutationally as this would destroy the melodic continuity and aural simplicity of the piece.
The constructed cell is played at eight different pitches descending in thirds – the first phrase starts on B, the second on G, and so on until the final repetition, two octaves lower than the first. This careful construction means the work's tonality (if indeed it has a tonality) appears to hover between G-minor and G-major; allowing non-tonal intervallic relationships to come to the fore and removing much of the sense of direction from the work – each phrase and chord appears to hang alone in space, their combination only heightening the effect.
While Fratres does not, superficially, seem to relate at all to Pärt's earlier serial works, the permutational techniques and disregard for conventional tonal harmony – even within diatonic frameworks – seem to me to be a logical continuation of the ideas of saturation and lack of an absolute-pitch based centre that are the cornerstones of serial composition. Pärt has combined aspects of two totally distinct types of music to create something new and unique.
1. Liner notes for the ECM recording of Tabula Rasa
2. Morton and Collins, ed. Contemporary Composers, 729.
Fratres will be performed by Cello Ensemble, opening the Chimera Evening Concert on Friday 13 March, 2009.