After inventing graph notation with his Projection I for solo cello in 1950, Feldman began in the 1960s to write works that used long tones and wordless singing. They were played very quietly, bringing out sounds, harmonic content, and other elements that could not be otherwise heard. This created a sustained, changing but unbroken "flat surface with a minimum of contrast." Written in 1971, Rothko Chapel was designed as a consciously meditative work for this architectural space in Houston, Texas, itself constructed as a place for contemplation for persons of all faiths or none. This work, designed to be heard by a listener surrounded with the sounds of the chapel itself, contains slightly more contrasting material that is usual for Feldman, beginning with a long melodic viola solo defined at both ends by quiet tympani rolls. A second section introduces a wordless chorus (on a vocable between "oh" and a closed "ah" sound) intoning beautiful chords ("certain intervals throughout the work have the ring of the synagogue," Feldman says), paced gently by chimes and some rattling percussion; eventually the viola enters again with its long, plaintive melody, and a slow continuous pulse on two tympani notes underlines the music; the chorus begins to sustain a very long unbroken chord (the singers stagger their breaths), paced by chimes. In the third section, an interlude is created for an angelic solo soprano voice (the melody was written "on the day of Stravinsky's funeral service in New York"), viola alternately bowed and pizzicato, and gentle tympani rolls. This moves, seamlessly, into an ending section, a "collage effect" with chorus, a "quasi-Hebraic" melody on the viola (written when Feldman was fifteen), and an unchanging simple reiterated rhythmic pattern on vibraphone. A deeply felt work presented in a simple, beautiful and unaffected realization, evocative of natural religious feeling.

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