Programme notes

Frater, ave atque vale ("Hail brother, and farewell") is a piece dedicated to the victims of the wars. The text comes from a poem by the Latin poet Gaius Valerius Catullus addressed to his dead brother. The composition starts off like a sort of funeral rite, with a lamentatio entrusted to a soloist and only female voices, and proceeds dramatically depicting feelings of anger, despair and melancholy, until the recollection of the missing person turns the sentiment into a delicate and intimate remembrance, a prayer-like atmosphere that leads to a noble and moved farewell.