Given the success with which it captured popular imagination ever since Arvo Pärt wrote it in 1977, it seems remarkable that Fratres had to wait until 2002 to be heard in Philadelphia. Christoph von Dohnányi had conducted it on several occasions with the Cleveland Orchestra; at the time of these subscription concerts, he had just completed his 19-year-long tenure as Music Director and was now beginning to guest-conduct across the US. ‘I never think of one orchestra being better than another,’ he remarked to the Philadelphia Enquirer, ‘just different, and I enjoy the differences.’