Overlooked Classics: Rachel’s – Music For Egon Schiele

I’ve always hated that apostrophe in the chamber music band – it’s as though the band were running a diner or something.I suspect it was due to the band being the brainchild of pianist and composer Rachel Grimes. Regardless of dubious punctuation marks, though, the Kentucky band were always makers of exquisite music, drawing as much from postrock influences as neoclassical.

Second album Music For Egon Schiele from 1996 was a gorgeous homage to the life and career of controversial Austrian expressionist, whose love life often blurred with his work (plus ca change, you might say).

The trio of Grimes on piano and mixing, alongside Christian Frederickson on viola and Wendy Doyle on cello made music that was elegiac, stately and moving.

Despite the allegations of incest, the melodic ‘Egon and Gertie’ has a tender romanticism towards its subject matter: the painter, and his sister, who was depicted in many provocative poses. ‘Family Portrait’ owes as much to Satie as the minimalist composers who initially inspired them. But there’s no weak track in it. It all just flows wonderfully.

I was fortunate enough to see Rachel’s perform this beautiful and underrated album in full at Glasgow School of Art. It was everything I wanted it to be (I cried a little) and the band were unexpectedly witty, too. A shame that they are no longer together, given the sad, untimely passing of later band members Edward Grimes and Jason Noble. We’ll always have this treasure though, and Rachel still makes wonderful music today.