Fähndrich: Viola cover

Fähndrich: Viola

Released

How did the viola, a preferred instrument of Mozart, Schubert, Dvorak, and Hindemith, became the butt of so much lowbrow orchestral humor? No answers will be found in this 1991 ECM album from the Swiss composer Walter Fähndrich, an hour-long odyssey of bone-chilling harmonics, eerie arpeggios, and spectral sul tasto (bowing over the fingerboard) that present the viola as an implement of brooding experimentalism and sheer terror.

Zev Kane

Recommended by

Suggestions
Nordic Suites cover

Nordic Suites

Ensemble Esperanza
Sex cover

Sex

The Necks
Johann Sebastian Bach cover

Johann Sebastian Bach

Víkingur Ólafsson
Compositrices: New Light on French Romantic Women Composers cover

Compositrices: New Light on French Romantic Women Composers

Ismaël Margain, Théo Fouchenneret, Cyrille Dubois, Quatuor Hanson, Tristan Raës, Victor Julien-Laferrière
Haydn: Paris Symphonies cover

Haydn: Paris Symphonies

Heidelberger Sinfoniker, Thomas Fey
Visages Baroques cover

Visages Baroques

Raphaël Feuillâtre