Fratres

Fratres by Arvo Prt is one of my favourite pieces of music. The analytical meets the aesthetical as Prt takes us on a meditative, harmonical journey, built up from a simple set of mathematical rules. Many people who listen to Fratres find it repetitive or even boring at first. After a while, though, they start to unconsciously recognize some of the patterns in the music. In a sense, they develop an intuitive feeling for what comes next in the sequence. Then, if they are the inquisitive, puzzle-solving type of person, they will try to understand the patterns rationally as well. This gradual awakening, whether intended by the composer or not, is perhaps what fascinates me most about Fratres. I have interpreted Fratres in the form of a dual SID tune.

Linus kesson - Fratres (Arvo Prt) - Dual SID (MP3, 15.0 MB) Fratres DualSID (SID, 7435 bytes)

If you downloaded the SID file, note that there are two subtunes. The first subtune uses arpeggios to play the tune on a single SID chip, whereas the second one (recommended) addresses two SID chips (at $d400 and $d500). To play the dual SID version with sidplay2, include -fd -o2 on the command line. The complex and many-faceted only confuses me, and I must search for unity. What is it, this one thing, and how do I find my way to it? Traces of this perfect thing appear in many guises and everything that is unimportant falls away.

 Arvo Prt

The algorithm
Warning! Spoilers ahead. If you enjoy solving puzzles, you may wish to search for these patterns yourself. In any case, I strongly recommend you to listen to the entire piece at least once before reading on. Have you listened to it now? Good.

Structure
The overall structure of Fratres is simple: Vertically, the piece is divided into two drones (an A and an E that last throughout the piece), three moving voices (low, middle and high) and some percussion (claves and bass drum). Horizontally, ten refuges separate nine segments. Each segment contains a series of chords arranged in some kind of harmonic progression. Between each pair of segments, a recurring, harmonically empty percussion motif the refuge offers a moment of contemplation before the next chord sequence. The following picture illustrates the refuges and segments as a (terribly long) pedestrian crossing. Each segment can be further divided into two halves: The first half consists of falling chords, and the second half consists of rising chords.

Within each segment half, three voices combine to play a sequence of chords. Each sequence consists of eight different chords played in three different orders (let's call them bars). They are: 1, 2, 7, 8 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. For instance, in the first half of the first segment, the eight chords are: (C#, A, E), (Bb, E, D), (A, E, C#), (G, C, Bb), (F, C, A), (E, C, G), (D, C, F) and (C#, A, E). Thus, in the first bar we get: (C#, A, E), (Bb, E, D), (D, C, F), (C#, A, E).

In order to understand the algorithm behind Fratres, we just need to figure out how to form the eight chords that build up each segment half. That is what the remainder of this article will focus on.

Tintinnabuli
Fratres is composed in the tintinnabuli style invented by Prt. This basically means that some voices are restricted to playing notes from a particular triad (in Fratres this is the A minor triad), while other voices play melodies. The drones, A and E, are obviously only playing notes from the A minor triad. The middle voice in the chords is also restricted in this way, so it will only ever play A, C or E in some octave. The high and low voices, however, play notes from the harmonic D minor scale. Note how the C sharp in the D minor scale contrasts with the C natural in the triad.

The low and high voices

Start with a harmonic D minor scale. Write it out as a circle, like this:

The low voice starts at C#. The high voice starts at E (and is transposed one octave further up). For the eight falling chords (the chords that build up the first half of the first segment), each voice simply moves around the circle, counter-clockwise, until it completes a full revolution at the eighth chord. For the rising chords, we do the same procedure clockwise. Much like the international date line in the pacific ocean, we add a seam, where the notes get transposed one octave. This will ensure that we end up where we started. To achieve symmetry, this is done when we've come exactly half the way around the circle, i.e. between chords 4 and 5.

The middle voice

As mentioned, the middle voice will only play notes from the A minor triad. Furthermore, the middle voice will by definition play in between the other two voices. But these constraints alone will not be enough to guide the middle voice, so instead we devise a new circle containing the three possible notes:

We want the middle voice to sync up to the low and high voices after one complete revolution. Alas, three doesn't divide seven, so we're forced to have some sort of assymmetry in this circle. Prt has resorted to using four consecutive C:s, as can be seen in the lower left part of our circle. Why four consecutive C:s? We can only speculate, but my personal theory is this: The ethereal, timeless sound of this whole piece is partly due to the fact that it lingers somewhere in between A minor and A major. This delicate balance is maintained using the C natural from the triad and the C sharp from the melodic voices. By choosing to duplicate the C in the middle voice circle, one prevents the piece from tilting too far towards A major. All right, but why not double the other C group, the one in the upper right part of the circle? That's easy. If we did that, then the middle voice would end up playing C natural at the same time as another voice would be playing C sharp. That would be too dissonant. Just like the low and high voices, the middle voice traverses the circle counter-clockwise during the first half of a segment, and clockwise during the second half. Both these journeys begin at the indicated note, e.g. the top A for segment one. But this circle contains fourteen notes rather than seven, so the middle voice does not play its own retrograde in the second half like the low and high voices do.

Spinning the wheels

To get the low, middle and high voices for the following segments, we simply move each starting point two steps around the circle, in the counter-clockwise direction. The following diagrams show the starting points for the falling and rising halves of segment number two. Second segment, falling half: Second segment, rising half:

This rotation, two steps at a time, continues for the entire set of nine segments. Thus, segments 1 and 8 will be identical, as will segments 2 and 9. And that is how you extract beautiful, complex harmonic content out of a simple formula.

Versions of Fratres (may not be quite up to date) ------------------Fratres (1977) Original version for chamber ensemble of early or modern instruments.(UE - rental only) (1980) Violin and piano. (UE 17.274) (1983) 8 or 12 cellos. (score UE 17.710/set of 4 parts UE 17.711) (1983) 4 cellos. (UE 17.711) (1983, rev. X/1991) String orchestra and percussion. (study score UE 17.802) (1985) String quartet. (full score UE 19.000/parts UE 19.000a-c) (1989) Cello and piano (arr. Dietmar Schwalke). (UE 19.563) (1990) Wind octet and percussion (arr. Beat Briner) (full score UE 19.814/parts UE 19.815) (1992) Violin, string orchestra and percussion. (study score UE 31.998/performance material - rental only) (1994) Trombone, string orchestra and percussion. (study score UE 32.397/performance material - rental only) (1995) Cello, string orchestra and percussion. (study score UE 31.997/performance material - rental only) (2002) Guitar, string orchestra and percussion. (study score UE 32.365/performance material - rental only) (2003) Viola and piano. (UE 32.624 - in preparation) Fratres - Notes --------------The original version of Fratres for strings, wind and percussion, was composed in 1977 for the Estonian early music ensemble Hortus Musicus Tallinn. Prt has since adapted the work for many different solo and ensemble combinations. The adaptations fall into two groups, one staying close to the original concept, the other with the addition of a soaring solo instrument line. Version for string quartet, from a programme note for the Balanescu Quartet performance at the 1992 Vale of Glamorgan Festival ....With the permission of the composer, some of Prt's students worked out a version for string quartet. It is based on the version for 12 cellos. Here is what New York Times critic John Pareles had to say of a performance of this version by the Kronos Quartet. "The most striking piece - and the gentlest - was Arvo Prt's Fratres.....Above a drone, there is a ghostly chorale in harmonics; the melodies, punctuated by open fifths plucked on cello, grow longer and lower and, at one point, add vibrato. Then they rise again and fade into some mystical ether. It is one of the few modern works to recapture the eerie reverence of early vocal polyphony." other notes in preparation string orch/perc - Dedicated to the memory of Eduard Tubin. Fratres is built over an open fifth, A-E pedal in the back desks of cellos and basses and the structure consists simply of nine rotations of a single idea. The idea is a kind of inside-out version of Copland's Fanfare

for The Common Man. The percussion is no ceremonial heralding but a hushed marking of time on claves and bass drum; and instead of a brassy fanfare the strings play a short melodic cell, amplified on its two repetitions by a single extra note in each direction, the three phrases then being repeated in inversion. Each of the nine rotations of this material begins a major or minor third lower than the previous one. The entire fascination of the piece derives from the shifting harmonic colour created by the flat second and split major/minor third within the tonic key. Drums and claves reiterate a two-bar pattern in 6/4 time. Between each reiteration, violins in 3 widely spaced parts sway in triadic false relations, floating in additive rhythms of 7/4, 9/4 and 11/4. There is no development except in so far as the percussion pattern inreases in dynamics each time it recurs, thereby encouraging violas and cellos to reinforce the violins. The enhanced weight makes the strings' false relations sound more passionate. This increase in dynamics, and in the tension implicit in the false relations, creates a kind of climax, though the thematic substance changes only slowly and slightly. Moreover, the dynamics are reversed at the central point, eventually fading to leave only the distant drum and endless drone. quartet - An eerie timelessness pervaded by the simplest of means: an omnipresent drone on the interval of a fifth (a symbol of eternity), a plaintive melody, and a distant rhythmic sentinel sounded on the cello. This version is particularly austere. Throughout, the second violin holds down a continuous chord of B-D, and against this drone the other parts move stepwise and in parallel motion. Whilst the V2 and Cello parts are tuned conventionally, the 1st v and viola parts are marked "scordatura", their lower strings being tuned respectively a major third and a major second lower than their normal pitch. This provides a richer textural sonority in the middle and lower ranges of the instruments. (Philip Taylor from Collins Classics 14752) Against the 2nd v's drone, the three-bar theme (in additive metre: 7/4,9/4 and 11/4) reappears immediately in inversion. With this, all the material has been presented. It is repaeted in different parts from B by way of G, E flat, C, A flat, F and D back to B. The arrangement for string orchestra by Hans Abrahamson, which was played by the Modern Art Museum Ensemble in an EBU concert from Copenhagen in October 1995, is closer to the string quartet version than Prt's string orchestra version. The version for violin and piano was arranged for Gidon and Elena Kremer, the dedicatees, for performance at the 1980 Salzburg Festival. Radically different from the other versions, this is set in the form of eight variations preceded by a solo violin prelude. The theme for the variations, which follows the same sequence of 7/4, 9/14 and 11/4 measures is here repeated eight times. The harmonic backbone of the original, which is preserved in the piano line is the result of a very simple procedure; two parts move in parallel thirds in the harmonic D minor, while the third part proceeds on the tones of the A minor chord. The resultant chords make up a harmonic series on the basis of which evolves the ornamental melodics of the violin, as well as the impressive chordal introduction. The authorised cello version by Dietmar Schwalke is closely based on Prt's violin version. At a later date, Prt arranged a version of Fratres which married the violin solo with the version for string orchestra.

En 1977, el compositor estonio Arvo Prt compuso su obra Fratres (hermanos) para la orquesta especializada en msica antigua Hortus Musicus de Tallinn. Como es habitual en la obra de Prt, Fratres tiene una inspiracin religiosa, de una espiritualidad a flor de piel, si bien no est pensada para el uso litrgico. Tres aos ms tarde, en 1980, se estrenaba la primera de las muchas adaptaciones que el propio Prt y otros msicos han realizado de la obra con distintas instrumentaciones. Se trataba, en este caso, de la adaptacin para violn y piano, dedicada a Gidon y Elena Kremer, quienes la estrenaron en el Festival de Salzburgo. Radicalmente distinta a la versin original, consta de ocho variaciones precedidas por un solo de violn. Posteriormente, se han realizado adaptaciones para orquesta de cuerda con percusin, para cuatro, ocho y doce violonchelos, para cuarteto de cuerda, para violonchelo y piano y para otras muchas combinaciones instrumentales.

Fratres for Cello and Piano In the 1970s, in search of inspiration, Prt began to research the historical origins of Western music, looking at Gregorian chant, church modes, and early polyphony. The compositions that follow these investigations imagine a different path of musical development, almost an alternate-history version of Western music. Many of them are explicitly religious; today he composes mostly sacred choral music. Fratres for Chamber Orchestra Over the course of his career, Prt has developed a proprietary compositional technique, called tintinnabuli (the name comes from the Latin tinnabulae: of bells [it's also where we get the beautiful English word tintinnabulation]). This method, at its most basic, consists of two lines of music, one moving by step, the other playing the notes in a triad. It makes for simple, ethereal, and deeply moving music. A good example of this technique is Prts 1976 piano work, Fr Alina: Fr Alina Fratres is either a collection of works, or a single work with many orchestrations. It is very simple music; it consists of a progression of chords that alternate with a percussive section. The changes and forward motion of the piece result from small changes in rhythm and dynamics. The first version, for string quartet, was composed in 1976. From 1976-1992, Prt has made five other orchestrations: for strings and percussion; for solo violin and piano; for solo cello and piano*; for eight cellos; for violin, strings and percussion. Other arrangers have prepared versions for wind octet and percussion; guitar and violin; and chamber orchestra. *This version was featured in the movie There Will Be Blood. This is for good reason. Its my favorite. Fratres for Violin, Strings and Percussion

All of these orchestrations provide different compositional challenges. For the orchestrations with solo instruments, because they cannot play block chords, they are replaced with light, very fast arpeggios. The orchestrations without percussion instruments have different solutions to the percussive sections that separate the chord progressions: in the string quartet they are played as strong pizzicato, in the versions for solo instrument and piano, the crashing piano provides the percussion. An arrangement for wind octet was prepared by B. Brinner; the octet is not nearly as homogeneous in sound as the string ensembles, requiring another kind of adjustment. Fratres for Guitar and Violin. Part Two. Fratres is deceptively simple. All of the musical ideas are laid out in the first thirty seconds of the recording of any one of the orchestrations, and yet in the six months or so since I first listened to it, Ive found myself revisiting and hearing new things in the various recordings and arrangements. It seems like each one has its moment when the music becomes transcendental.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=boGPdQ08iYE