Max Richter recomposing Vivaldi

A quick music recommendation for you.

It’s a symptom of getting older that you begin becoming more and more interested in the ‘adult’ musical genres that appalled you in your youth, I think. I got my head around world music first, then classical, and then eventually jazz, and now genuinely love aspects of all three, although they’re far too huge in terms of depth for me to boast any expert knowledge.

Of the three, I know the least about classical music – or rather pre-20th century classical music. I used to work on the Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians with some clever and very likeable musos, who convinced me of the merits of Glass, Part, Terry Riley, Messiaen etc, but I have utterly failed to dig deeper into the vast canon of classics represented by the likes of Beethoven, Bach, Vivaldi and Mozart, none of whom were played in the house when I grew up or anything like that. I’m aware that I should know their work more, respect it more, understand it better.

If you feel the same – inspired by the minimal textures of modern and contemporary classical music but intimidated by the old masters, you might want to check out this LP – a re-composing of Vivaldi’s ‘The Four Seasons’ by the German-born English musician Max Richter. It’s really incredible – a classical piece which takes Vivaldi as its starting point but strips back the orchestration and the familiar tropes to create something a bit more contemporary sounding. In a couple of places I’ve seen it compared rather sniffily to a film-score, or encountered dull curmudgeons who imagine something sacrilegious about Richter adopting this playful approach to Vivaldi’s score. But that’s probably to be expected.

Anyway, I absolutely love it. There are bits of ‘The Four Seasons’ that even I can recognise, and other bits which I couldn’t tell you who wrote them, Vivaldi or Richter. The latter has claimed that around 75% of the work is his – but the debt is huge. Either way, it’s a synthesis that works beautifully and a really lovely record.