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
Forgotten Sounds cover

Forgotten Sounds

Charles Martin Loeffler, Graeme Steele Johnson
Dvořák: Cello Concerto cover

Dvořák: Cello Concerto

Staatskapelle Berlin, Kian Soltani, Daniel Barenboim
Salsa Baroque cover

Salsa Baroque

Ensemble Caprice, Matthias Maute
Sex cover

Sex

The Necks
Golijov: Azul cover

Golijov: Azul

The Knights, Eric Jacobsen, Yo-Yo Ma
Chopin cover

Chopin

Rafał Blechacz
Vincerò! cover

Vincerò!

Marco Boemi, Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana, Piotr Beczala
Mozart: Les trois dernières symphonies cover

Mozart: Les trois dernières symphonies

Mathieu Herzog, Ensemble Appassionato