Vivaldi: The Four Seasons Recomposed by Max Richter
6/28/2019, 14 Tracks, 1:03:39
Max Richter's recomposition of Vivaldi's The Four Seasons has fast become a classic of the contemporary violin repertoire. The work's latest recording is by the award-winning violinist Fenella Humphreys, accompanied by the Covent Garden Sinfonia and Ben Palmer. They also perform Lonely Angel, a meditation for violin and string orchestra by Pēteris Vasks, as well as Arvo Pärt's well-known Fratres.
Featuring
Ben Palmer
Fenella Humphreys
Covent Garden Sinfonia
Max Richter
Pēteris Vasks
Arvo Pärt
Did you know?
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Album & Artwork
This album features works by three composers who can be broadly described as 'post-minimalist,' demonstrating a 'New Simplicity' in their music.
Composer's Artistic Vision
Vyacheslav Karatygin, a Russian critic, predicted in 1914 that the impact of technology on artists would lead to a return to simplicity, anticipating both Stravinsky's neo-classicism and later minimalism.
Composer Biography
Max Richter, a pianist-composer, co-founded Piano Circus in 1989, an ensemble that commissioned works from leading minimalists like Graham Fitkin and Julia Wolfe.
Composition History
Arvo Pärt's 'Fratres,' composed in 1977, was one of the earliest works written in his 'tintinnabuli' style and helped establish his international reputation.
Composer's Artistic Vision
Arvo Pärt, an Estonian composer, developed his 'tintinnabuli' style in the 1970s by studying medieval church music, focusing on the beauty of single notes and primitive materials like triads.
Compositional Technique
Max Richter's 'Recomposed by Max Richter: Vivaldi · The Four Seasons' explicitly connects the regular harmonic patterns of 18th-century music to post-minimalism.
Composer Biography
The Latvian composer Pēteris Vasks, born into a Baptist family under Soviet rule, suffered persecution for his religious beliefs and witnessed arrests, leading him to compose a choral song of resistance at age ten.
