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
Dvořák: Quintets, Op. 81 & 97 cover

Dvořák: Quintets, Op. 81 & 97

Boris Giltburg, Pavel Haas Quartet, Pavel Nikl
 Spohr & Martinu: Nonets cover

Spohr & Martinu: Nonets

Wolfgang Schulz, Alois Posch, Milan Turkovic, Wolfram Christ, Gerhart Hetzel, Günter Högner, Ensemble Wien-Berlin, Hansjörg Schellenberger, Karl Leister, Georg Faust
Chopin cover

Chopin

Rafał Blechacz
Two Voices cover

Two Voices

Fair Oriana
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
The New Sound cover

The New Sound

Geordie Greep
Sex cover

Sex

The Necks
Barricades cover

Barricades

Thomas Dunford, Jean Rondeau
Hush cover

Hush

Marnix Dorrestein, Nora Fischer