Composed 2012/(1716-17); 11:30 minutes

“It’s my way of having a conversation with Vivaldi,” says West German-born British composer Max Richter of his 2012 re-composing of Vivaldi’s 18^th century masterpiece. Classically trained, Richter has worked with considerable success at the intersection of contemporary classical, electronics, and alternative popular idioms—writing for stage, opera, ballet, and screen. In The Four Seasons Recomposed, Richter keeps to Vivaldi’s basic three-movement concerto structure, as well as preserving familiar gestures, textures, and dynamics, often with a twist. He views a section of the first movement of his Summer, for example, as “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.” Richter says that he dispenses with three-quarters of Vivaldi’s notes in his homage to the composer. The process has been likened to putting Vivaldi’s music through a time machine and bringing it into the 21^st century.