Antonio Vivaldi’s most famous piece, The Four Seasons, is one of the most easily recognizable classical works—and this familiarity is precisely what led German-born British composer Max Richter to “recompose” the piece in 2011. As Richter describes,

When I was a young child I fell in love with Vivaldi’s original, but over the years, hearing it principally in shopping centers, advertising jingles, on telephone hold systems, and similar places, I stopped being able to hear it as music; it had become an irritant—much to my dismay! So I set out to try and find a new way to engage with this wonderful material, by writing through it anew—similarly to how scribes once illuminated manuscripts—and thus rediscovering it myself. I deliberately didn’t want to give it a modernist imprint but to remain in sympathy and in keeping with Vivaldi’s own musical language.

Known for melding classical and popular styles, Richter retains Vivaldi’s basic format: four three-movement violin concertos, each dedicated to one of the seasons. He also remains true to the basic melodic contours and rhythmic gestures. Apart from that, however, Richter approaches Vivaldi’s original almost as a playground. “I was spoilt for choice,” the composer says. “I just went through it, picking my favorite bits and turning those up, making new objects out of them. It was like a sculptor, having fantastic raw material and putting it together.”

Richter deliberately uses elements that didn’t exist in the Baroque era. “I’ve used electronics in several movements, subtle, almost inaudible things to do with the bass, but I wanted certain moments to connect to the whole electronic universe that is so much part of our musical language today,” he explains. He also makes connections between Vivaldi’s original and modern popular music.

[Summer] is heavy music for the orchestra. It's relentless pulsed music, which is a quality that contemporary dance music has; and perhaps I was also thinking about John Bonham's drumming. Then, in the second movement of Autumn, I asked the harpsichordist to play in what is a rather old-fashioned way, very regularly, rather like a ticking clock…because that style connects to various pop records from the 1970s where the harpsichord or clavinet was featured, including various Beach Boys albums and the Beatles’ Abbey Road.

©Jennifer More, 2021