Greenbriar Consortium / David Kirk WALTER STEFFENS - MAREC BÉLA STEFFENS Two Cells in Sevilla

In many ways, Walter Steffens' Two Cells in Sevilla is a work of polar opposites. Quasi-tonal but modern, traditional but minimalist, the German composer has created an opera uniting two historical protagonists as multi-faceted as the music itself. The libretto, written by Steffens' son Marec Béla Steffens, fancifully merges the lives of Brother Gabriel Téllez, best known under his pen name Tirso de Molina as the inventor of the fictional womanizer Don Juan, and that of Miguel de Cervantes, the author of windmill-fighting Don Quixote. Both look upon the world from their own respective confines – the monk Brother Gabriel from his cloister, Don Miguel from a debtor's prison cell. Their divine literary outbursts are provoked by a very mundane desire indeed: Both habitats share the same slothful cook, a lady with a penchant for gallant novels. Spurred by the same simple wish of enjoying a heartier fare, both Brother Gabriel and Don Miguel de Cervantes embark on a competition to come up with the raciest, most exciting novel to win the good will of their cook. The music captures this dialectic perfectly, conveying a grandiose arc of drama with deceptive ease and at the same time elevating the mundane to greatness. It would be tempting to diagnose enlightened undertones in the libretto as well as in the music: For as sublime as the work sounds, it remains deeply committed to the human spirit. Two Cells in Sevilla is rounded off by Steffens' musical interpretation of five poems by fellow-German Friedrich Hölderlin, widely known for the intensely lyrical, idealistic quality of his work and his tragic descent into insanity. With these lieder's ethereal fluctuation between beauty and pain, they truly are an apt choice for an album as full of contrasts as this one.

Kim Kashkashian / Sarah Rothenberg / Steven Schick MORTON FELDMAN - ERIK SATIE - JOHN CAGE Rothko Chapel

The album ‘Rothko Chapel’ addresses a network of musical relationships and inspirations, taking as its main focus Morton Feldman’s work named for the Houston, Texas multi-faith chapel built to house Mark Rothko’s site-specific paintings.

Feldman considered that his ‘Rothko Chapel’ lay “between categories, between time and space, between painting and music”, and described the score as his “canvas”. Amongst his most important influences were abstract painters, his friend Mark Rothko prominent amongst them. (Rothko, for his part, yearned to “raise painting to the level of music and poetry”.) Feldman was also liberated by the freewheeling example of John Cage’s work. “The main influence from Cage was a green light,'' Feldman said. ''It was permission, the freedom to do what I wanted.'' Cage, the most relentless of 20th century experimentalists, didn’t acknowledge what he called an “ABC model of ‘influence’” but always had a special fondness for Satie, a musical inventor of good-humoured originality with whom he could identify.

Feldman’s piece was first played in the chapel in 1972. On the 40th anniversary of the opening of the Rothko Chapel in 2011, a concert was held there bringing together works of Feldman, Cage and Satie. This programme was reprised for the present CD with recordings made at other Houston locations - Rice University (Cage, Satie) and the Brown Foundation Performing Arts Theater (Feldman).

Leading viola player Kim Kashkashian negotiates the subtle, glowing textures of Feldman’s planes of sound, joined by Sarah Rothenberg on celeste, and supported by percussion and choir. Rothenberg, on piano, plays Satie’s Gnossiennes and Cage’s Inner Landscape, and the Houston Chamber Choir sings Cage’s Four, Five and more, illuminating this rarely heard choral music. (Presto Classical)