The Rothko Chapel, which turned 50 last year, reopened in 2020 after an extensive restoration. To celebrate the anniversary, the composer Tyshawn Sorey premièred “Monochromatic Light (Afterlife),” his gripping new work, in the chapel.
Two formidable artistic creations bear the name “Rothko Chapel.” The first is an ecumenical spiritual space, in Houston, built to display huge, dark paintings by Mark Rothko. The second is a half-hour composition by Morton Feldman, which had its première in the chapel in 1972, a year after the site opened. Each work possesses a legendary aura.
That chord of eternity occupies only a few pages of the score. The rest sometimes departs radically from the Rothko aesthetic and, indeed, from the remainder of Feldman’s output. The composer was generally steadfast in his resistance to conventional tonality, faithful to the Schoenbergian precept that the musical languages of the past were defunct. “Rothko Chapel” represents an extraordinary exception.
“Rothko Chapel” is perhaps best understood not as a personal narrative about either Rothko or Feldman but as a depiction of the very act of exploring a multilayered work of art. At times, as in the central passage, the music appears to mimic Rothko’s impassive, towering surfaces. The solo viola hints at the stray thoughts of the viewer. Bass-drum and timpani rolls suggest interior unease, or perhaps the distant noise of the outside world.
The building blocks of “Monochromatic Light ” are essentially the same as those of “Rothko Chapel”: sustained choral chords, questing viola lines, rumblings and chimings of percussion. Yet significant differences soon appear. The viola is broader, more restless, more impassioned. One phrase is marked “legato, molto espressivo”—editorializing that is absent from “Rothko Chapel.
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