![\"\"](\"https:\/\/soundslikesydney.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/recomposed-by-max-richter-vivaldis-four-seasons-300x300.jpg\" "\\"recomposed-by-max-richter-vivaldis-four-seasons\\"")
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Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, <\/em>composed in 1723,<\/em>\u00a0is so ‘accessible’, it has suffered the fate of overexposure. Its\u00a0four heady\u00a0concerti\u00a0pass through\u00a0 summer, autumn, winter, and spring,\u00a0depicting folk\u00a0life and evocative landscapes in bite-sized chunks. Some of its passages are so instantly recognisable that they have suffered the ignominy of being used as background music in commercials.<\/p>\n Enter German-born British composer and\u00a0pianist\u00a0Max Richter (b 1966), who has reworked Vivaldi’s cornerstone repertoire work with his own influences of minimalism, electronic music, punk, club music and\u00a0psychedelic rock. Richter studied piano and composition at the University of Edinburgh, the Royal Academy of Music\u00a0 and with Luciano Berio. He co-founded the ensemble Piano Circus in 1989 which commissioned and performed works by Arvo P\u00e4rt, Brian Eno, Philip Glass,\u00a0Michael Nyman, Louis Andriessen and Steve Reich.<\/p>\n Vivaldi Recomposed<\/em> was premiered in London in October 2012 by the Britten Sinfonia, with violin soloist Daniel Hope, conducted by Andr\u00e9 de Ridder, whom Sydney audiences\u00a0 loved when he conducted the Sydney Symphony in their recent 2001: A Space Odyssey\u00a0<\/em>performance. Deutsche Grammophon recorded\u00a0Richter’s recomposition\u00a0for release in February 2013 with Hope and German ensemble Konzerthaus Kammerorchester Berlin, led again by conductor Andr\u00e9 de Ridder.<\/p>\n It was\u00a0chosen as the Best Contemporary Classical album of 2012 on iTunes in Australia, the US and UK.<\/p>\n Richter says \u201cAnything that a composer writes is part of a conversation with music that has gone before. A lot of Berio\u2019s work was explicitly an engagement with the past: in works like Sinfonia<\/em>, for example, quotation and reference are integral elements. At the time I never thought that I\u2019d pick that idea up, but here is an instance where perhaps I have. It\u2019s surprising how these things creep up on you. Vivaldi\u2019s music is made of regular patterns, and that connects with post-minimalism, which is one strand in the music that I write. That felt like a natural link, but even so it was surprisingly difficult to navigate my way through it.”<\/p>\n Conductor Andr\u00e9 de Ridder has recently worked on Dr Dee<\/em>, an opera by the British pop musician Damon Albarn of Blur and Gorillaz, and regularly collaborates with electronic bands and non-classical musicians such as Mouse on Mars, Tyondai Braxton and These New Puritans.<\/p>\n De Ridder admits to some early doubts. \u201cI\u2019d initially been sceptical; I couldn’t help thinking of all the bad pop and jazz versions of The Four Seasons<\/em>. My scepticism evaporated when Max played me his demo tapes. His version uses contemporary compositional techniques more familiar from electronic pop music: looping and sampling, for example. But he applies these techniques in analogue, writing them down and working on them with his ensemble, to the point where now I almost prefer the end product to the original.\u201d<\/p>\n Daniel Hope is a former member of the Beaux Arts Trio.\u00a0As\u00a0a noted exponent of both\u00a0contemporary and classical repertoire he is well placed to interpret both the old and new facets of the work. He too was reluctant to be involved at first. \u201cThe Four Seasons <\/em>is a radical tour de force<\/em> for the solo violinist. I have always shied away from recording Vivaldi\u2019s original; there are simply too many other versions out there. Max\u2019s reworking has persuaded me to listen to the piece anew and has restored my appetite for the original.\u201d<\/p>\n Richter describes having to maintain a strict separation between his ideas and those\u00a0he was inhabiting. \u201cAt every point I had to work out how much is Vivaldi and how much is me. My score contains passages that are 90 per cent my own material, and others where I have changed only the odd note of the original, slightly shortening individual bars, lengthening others, moving others still. It was difficult but also rewarding because the raw material is so fascinating.\u201d<\/p>\n Recomposed by Max Richter \u2013\u00a0Vivaldi’s ‘The Four Seasons’<\/em><\/strong> is available on Deutsche Gramophon catalogue number: 9 476 5041 6 LP GH<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, composed in 1723,\u00a0is so ‘accessible’, it has suffered the fate of overexposure. Its\u00a0four heady\u00a0concerti\u00a0pass through\u00a0 summer, autumn, winter,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10577,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"sls_format":[],"class_list":["post-10575","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":{"deck":"","is_featured":false,"media_type":"standard","audio_embed":"","video_url":""},"yoast_head":"\n