Our programme is completed by one of the best-known pieces of Arvo Pärt (born in 1935), Fratres, composed in 1977 and disseminated in a variety of transcriptions. Pärt is a major exponent of the eastern European brand of minimalism, meditative and mystical in its expression (alongside his Polish contemporary Gorecki and, to a certain extent, his British counterpart Tavener, whose conversion to the Greek Orthodox Church established a link with eastern spirituality). After an early wouldbe ‘avant-garde’ phase using serial techniques, he quickly established his own style, defined as ‘tintinnabulation’, an allusion to the harmonies of church bells. Harry Halbreich, December 2012
11
written much later in August 1939. Baal Shem, and especially Nigun, is far removed from the radical style of the sonatas and deliberately seeks to touch a popular audience. While it is clearly in a quite different artistic category, Bloch always thought highly of it, even though he was sometimes irritated by its success at the expense of more important works.