Nicholas Kenyon 

Feldman, Satie, Cage: Rothko Chapel CD review – hypnotic and moving

A sombre and uplifting procession of musical relationships
  
  

Sarah Rothenberg (left), Kim Kashkashian (second right) and Robert Simpson (right) with members of the Houston Chamber Choir.
Sarah Rothenberg (left), Kim Kashkashian (second right) and Robert Simpson (right) with members of the Houston Chamber Choir. Photograph: Pin Lim, Ben Doyle, ECM Records

Some works quietly become masterpieces: Morton Feldman’s intense, spare and evocative Rothko Chapel (written for the octagonal building in Houston that houses his paintings) was challenging when new; I sang in it at Dartington in the 1970s. Now it seems an utterly natural, hieratic procession of contrasted friezes in which not a note is out of place; like Rothko’s visions, it is sombre but uplifting. After this half-hour immersion, anything else might be an anti-climax, but the sequence that follows of Erik Satie piano pieces (Sarah Rothenberg) and John Cage choral fragments (Houston Chamber Choir) traces a hypnotic line of innovation. In a week of mourning, a moving hour of reflection.

 

Leave a Comment

Required fields are marked *

*

*