Max richter vivaldi
“Max Richter’s new version of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons shows that the classical remix has finally come of age” observed The Telegraph, and noted, “It’s almost impossible to come to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons with completely fresh ears, but this mesmerising album enables listeners to rediscover these amazing works, creating entirely new music with a minimalist Baroque twist.” “My aim was to fall in love with the original again – and I have” Recomposed By Max Richter: Vivaldi – The Four Seasons, featuring violinist Daniel Hope and the Konzerthaus Kammerorchester Berlin symphony orchestra conducted by André de Ridder, topped the classical chart in 22 countries. It was difficult but also rewarding because the raw material is so fascinating.” At every point I had to work out how much is Vivaldi and how much is me. That felt like a natural link, but even so it was surprisingly difficult to navigate my way through it. “Vivaldi’s music is made of regular patterns, and that connects with post-minimalism, which is one strand in the music that I write. “There are times I depart completely from the original, yes, but there are moments when it pokes through,” noted Richter.
But you go on a detour and you experience that space almost as though you’ve never been there before.”Īlthough Max Richter said he discarded around three-quarters of Vivaldi’s original material the parts he does use are phased and looped emphasising his grounding in postmodern and minimalist music. You do it every day and you don’t really see the place that you’re driving through. It’s like taking a detour from your commute. Some of the time I’m taking the original and subverting or recontextualising it, and sometimes I’ve gone off on another trip. So it was quite easy to find a common musical thread between what I normally do and what Vivaldi’s doing. “My starting point was the realisation that Vivaldi’s music was modular, it’s made out of little patterns, in the way a lot of post-minimal and contemporary music is in the way a lot of my music is. I wanted to get inside the score at the level of the notes and in essence re-write it, re-composing it in a literal way,” Richter explained.Ĭlick to load video “Some of the time I’m taking the original and subverting it … ” “I wanted to open up the score on a note-by-note level, and working with an existing recording was like digging a mineshaft through an incredibly rich seam, discovering diamonds and not being able to pull them out. He sought to do so in an accessible style that mirrored Vivaldi’s intentions with the piece, rather than to place a twentieth century Modernist imprint on it.
The idea of recomposing and re-processing musical works was common practice in Vivaldi’s time and Richter wanted to reconnect with the piece and to re-start the conversation on Vivaldi’s work. Like many composers Max Richter was always fascinated by Vivaldi’s 1725 composition because, “ The Four Seasons is an omnipresent piece of music and like no other part of our musical landscape.” But he was also aware that for many, including himself, it had long ago ceased to be something of beauty and had instead become an ever-present piece of muzak. Max Richter was always fascinated by Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons