The aim of this research point is to write a 400-word review of a recording of Vivaldi Recomposed, looking into contextual information regarding both the original and the recomposed renditions and their creators. In total, this post is substantially longer, being around 1000 words. Before I delve more concretely into the task, it might be good to begin with a note on the classical music recording and publishing label Deutsche Grammophon (Fig. 1), whose 2014 reissue version of the piece I’ve listened to and selected for this task. Interestingly, the label came up with the idea to reinterpret musical classics, naming the series Recomposed. The production began by inviting different contemporary artists to create their own rendering of iconic works in the canon, giving dance and electronica musicians access to their catalogue. (Smith, 2010) However, while the previous invitees reworked the classics by using catalogue recordings as samples, mostly remixing or creating hypertextual translations, Max Richter, who was classically trained, chose to quite literally provide a full recomposition of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons directly from the score. It is only on top of this rewriting, which filtered the original notation through the postmodern and minimalist lens, that Richter adds a touch of light electronics. As such, Vivaldi Recomposed is unique in its blend of the old and new notation, live and prerecorded performance.
