Rothko Chapel has long occupied a central place
in the reception of Morton Feldman’s music. It exhibits the fragmentary
textures, low dynamic levels and heightened sense of the numinous which
define his music to many listeners. Feldman himself was less sure of
its merits: ‘not a particularly important piece, but easy to listen
to’. I found no reason to agree with the first part of his criticism
(and found nothing to criticise in the second), but, placed in the context
of what the composer himself were more ‘important’ works, I began to
see his point about Rothko Chapel. It famously echoes Rothko’s
washes of paint on vast spaces with a base aural canvas of quiet: the
notes interrupt the silence, not the other way around. A solo viola
makes melancholy interjections, occasionally replied to by timpani rolls.
A female semi-chorus moves in and out of inaudibility, just as the chapel
itself moves in and out of view as you gaze at Rothko’s paintings. Two
of the chorus members have solos. Blink and you’ll miss them. Certainly
it’s atmospheric, nowhere more so than at the work’s conclusion where,
in a rare moment of sentiment in Feldman’s music, the solo viola plays
a tune (a tune? A tune!), ‘the memory of a piece,’ said Feldman, ‘that
I wrote when I was 14.’ Norbert Blume gave the moment all the eloquence
it needed: just as importantly, the audience gave it the required degree
of concentrated attention which is essential for Feldman’s music.
Only in the direct context of Violin and Orchestra was it suddenly
obvious that something was missing from the episodic form of Rothko
Chapel. Even for Feldman fans this may have come as a surprise,
since Violin and Orchestra is so little heard, though its hour-long
duration probably gives a good clue why. This is Isabelle Faust’s
second performance of it: she said she was aware of no others since
its premiere in 1979, though given that this was not billed as a UK
premiere, someone is wrong somewhere. I only hope others will ask her
to do it, because there are precious few other violinists around with
the patience to learn and play it, and play it so beautifully. It helps
to have one of the most tonally sensuous Strads around (the ‘Sleeping
Beauty’ of 1704, from the glorious start of Strad’s golden period),
but Faust’s bow control was unimpeachable in the part’s keenings and
whisperings. She played from a full score and she had to, in order to
catch cues from ppp rustlings within the orchestra.
The score’s most remarkable feature is its richness; not a continual
richness of orchestration like Coptic Light, but a staggering
inventiveness in the use of instrumental resources. A twilit sound world
lulls the listener into a state of hypnotic concentration, only to find
that what appears at first to be repetition is minutely altered variation,
for bar after bar. Phrases and fragments of phrases rise and fall through
the bare texture, disappearing only to reappear, once more subtly changed,
20 minutes later. This is the repertoire at which the BBCSO is unmatched
in this country, and it was a privilege to hear such a complex piece
given such a confident performance.
The success of the evening was of course due in large part to Martyn
Brabbins, who conducted the BBCSO in the last BBC concert devoted
to Feldman’s music, a few years ago at Maida Vale studio 1. Then as
now he concluded with Feldman’s last orchestral score, Coptic Light
(1986), but circumstances were different this time, and much for the
better. Not only did the Barbican’s improved acoustic create a small
but significant resonant haze for Feldman’s aural equivalent of a Persian
carpet, but the players were prepared to take it seriously: which, judging
from the constant and irritating sniggers from orchestral members in
Maida Vale, they did not do last time. Coptic Light takes a completely
different approach to orchestral texture from the two previous works,
by using all of the (huge) orchestra, almost all the time: like Schumann
gone mad, only not for grandiose striving, but the opposite, a continual
weaving of parts into a smoothly rippling whole. The dynamic is still
quiet: at least, as quietly as a hundred musicians can play for half
an hour at a time. The effect is riveting and quite different from that
of either earlier work: canny programming on the part of the BBC. The
relatively decent attendance cannot have offset the cost of mounting
the concert by much, but perhaps it will provide incentive sufficient
to sponsor further exploration of this musical free-thinker.
Peter Quantrill
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