Rachel's - Music for Egon Schiele LP
$31.98
Label: Quarterstick
Release Date: May 30th, 2025
Originally released in 1996 on Quarterstick Records, Music for Egon Schiele is a chamber-styled soundtrack composed by Rachel Grimes for a theater and dance performance inspired by the life of the provocative Viennese painter. Written and directed by Stephan Mazurek, the piece premiered on May 18, 1995, in Chicago with the Itinerant Theater Guild. Grimes performed the music live alongside two string players, creating an intimate, emotional score that echoed Schiele’s romantic intensity and tragic arc.
The Rachel’s began recording in 1991 under the direction of Christian Frederickson and Jason Noble (Rodan, Shipping News), later joined by pianist and composer Rachel Grimes. After a few years of city moves and musical reinvention, the group solidified in 1994 and released their debut Handwriting. Music for Egon Schiele followed as their second LP—a more immediate, stripped-down work, trading post-rock sprawl for a focused, neoclassical intimacy.
These pieces don’t just accompany a narrative—they breathe life into it. The music swells and breaks, whispering with mystery, longing, and quiet devastation. It’s not sparse—it’s precise. And it leaves you wondering not just about Egon Schiele, but about the deeper shapes of love, loss, and the strange elegance of impermanence.
