Houston Chamber Choir/Robert Simpson/Sarah Rothenberg: Rothko Chapel – Album Review

Morton Feldman's Rothko Chapel was written in memory of his friend Mark Rothko, for performance at the non-denominational chapel the painter was providing canvases for at the time of his death.

Instruments and wordless voices, both solo and choral, lead the gentlest of co-existences in this work, as if there’s nothing to be done but hover quietly until the surprise arrival of a tune for solo viola (Kim Kashkashian).

This studious performance perpetuates the haunting aura of timelessness in slow piano pieces by Erik Satie and John Cage, and three late choral works by Cage which pare the musical elements back even more radically.

[ ecmrecords.com ]