Fratelli
by Marcos Lucas
- Instrumentation
- Cello, Cello
- Composed
- 2021
- Publisher
- Musica Brasilis (free score and parts, licensed by the composer)
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About this piece
Marcos Lucas, born in Rio de Janeiro in 1964, studied composition with Guerra-Peixe and Ricardo Tacuchian, took his doctorate at the University of Manchester and teaches at UNIRIO. He dated Fratelli (Italian for 'brothers') 2021 and dedicated it 'to the Duo Santoro, with friendship', and the twin cellists Paulo and Ricardo Santoro played it, billed as a world premiere, on their March 2021 tour O Compositor é Vivo!. A swaying 'Gingando' opening, in which the first cello snaps between bowed and plucked chords over a syncopated ostinato in the second, gives way to an 'Arioso, molto cantabile', a muted 'Dolente' and a 'Desolato, come un lamento per chi è partito' (desolate, like a lament for one who has left), where the first cello sings high in the treble clef over rippling sul tasto arpeggios. The opening music returns and the piece ends fortissimo.
Technical overview
In D major and 4/4 at quarter note = 92, with slower sections in 6/8, 9/8, 5/8 and 3/4. The first cello moves through bass, tenor and treble clef up to the C two octaves above middle C, with natural harmonics, trills, fast sixteenth-note runs and quick changes between arco and pizzicato; the second cello stays mostly in bass clef with ostinatos, measured sextuplet oscillations, tremolo chords at the tip of the bow and thirty-second-note arpeggios across the strings. Both players use mutes in the Dolente.