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Recomposed by Max Richter: Vivaldi – The Four Seasons is a composition that features on a 2012 album by neo-classical composer Max Richter, released on August 31, 2012 on Universal Classics and Jazz (Germany), a division of Universal Music Group, and Deutsche Grammophon,^[1] and further recorded by Fenella Humphreys and released on Rubicon Classics in 2019.^[2] The piece is a complete recomposition and reinterpretation of Vivaldi's The Four Seasons.

Although Richter said that he had discarded 75 percent of Vivaldi's original material,^[3] the parts he does use are phased and looped, emphasising his grounding in postmodern and minimalist music.^[4]

The Deutsche Grammophon album was played by the violinist Daniel Hope and the Konzerthaus Kammerorchester Berlinsymphony orchestra, and conducted by André de Ridder. On the album, Hope plays the 'Ex-Lipinski' violin, an instrument made by Giuseppe Guarneri del Gesù in 1742 and made available to the violinist by a German family who asked to remain anonymous.

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The Rubicon Classics recording features soloist Fenella Humphreys and the Covent Garden Sinfonia, conducted by Ben Palmer. Humphreys recorded using a violin from the circle of Peter Guarneri of Venice, made in 1727.

Release[edit]

Richter’s recomposed version of Vivaldi's The Four Seasons was premiered in the UK at the Barbican Centre on 31 October 2012, performed by the Britten Sinfonia, conducted by André de Ridder, with violinist Daniel Hope the soloist.^[5] The album topped the iTunes classical chart in the UK, Germany, and the US.^[6] The US launch concert in New York at Le Poisson Rouge was recorded by NPR and streamed live.

Critical reception[edit]

Recomposed by Max Richter: Vivaldi – The Four Seasons received widespread acclaim from contemporary classical music critics.

Four Seasons Wikipedia

Ivan Hewett of the Telegraph gave the album a very positive review, stating:

As you would expect of a composer who once studied with the great modernist Luciano Berio, Richter is very self-aware. He notices that his own taste in repeating patterns doesn’t mesh with the apparently similar patterns in Vivaldi. They obey a different logic, and the friction between them generates a fascinatingly ambiguous colour. Richter teases out and heightens this colour, sometimes with Vivaldi uppermost, sometimes himself. It is a subtle and often moving piece of work, which suggests that after years of tedious disco and trance versions of Mozart, the field of the classical remix has finally become interesting.^[7]

Track listing[edit]

All tracks are written by Max Richter.

Four Seasons Classical Winter

Four Seasons Classical

Personnel[edit]

Main personnel

• Max Richter – composer, mixing, producer, quotation author
• André de Ridder – conductor
• Daniel Hope – primary artist, violin [solo]
• Raphael Alpermann – harpsichord
• Konzerthaus Kammerorchester Berlin – orchestra
• Alexander Kahl – cello
• David Drost – cello
• Nerina Mancini – cello
• Ying Guo – cello
• Ernst-Martin Schmidt – viola
• Felix Korinth – viola
• Katja Plagens – viola
• Matthias Benker – viola
• Alicia Lagger – violin [first]
• Christoph Kulicke – violin [first]
• Karoline Bestehorn – violin [first]
• Sayako Kusaka – violin [first], concertmaster
• Cornelia Dill – violin [second]
• Jana Krämer – violin [second]
• Johannes Jahnel – violin [second]
• Ulrike Töppen – violin [second]
• Ronith Mues – harp
• Georg Schwärsky – double bass
• Jorge Villar Paredes – double bass
• Sandor Tar – double bass

Additional personnel

• Antonio Vivaldi – original material
• Felix Feustel – product manager
• Neil Hutchinson – recording engineer, mixing
• Christian Kellersmann – original concept
• Nick Kimberley – liner notes
• Götz-Michael Rieth – mastering engineer
• Mandy Parnell – mastering engineer
• Matthias Schneider – project manager
• Erik Weiss – photography
• Jenni Whiteside – editing
• Double Standards – art direction

Charts[edit]

References[edit]

1. ^Recomposed by Max Richter – Antonio Vivaldi – Die vier Jahreszeiten – The Four Seasons: Deutsche Grammophon Catalog
2. ^'Rubicon Classics'. rubiconclassics.com. Retrieved 2019-06-12.
3. ^'Recomposed by Max Richter: Vivaldi, The Four Seasons'. Retrieved 27 December 2012.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
4. ^Tania Halban (28 November 2012). 'Recomposed or refragmented?'. Retrieved 1 February 2013.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
5. ^'Max Richter: Vivaldi Recomposed'. 31 October 2012. Archived from the original on 9 November 2012. Retrieved 10 December 2012.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
6. ^'RECOMPOSED | Chart-Erfolg für Max Richters 'Vivaldi Recomposed' in den USA | News'. Klassikakzente.de. Retrieved 29 November 2013.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
7. ^Hewett, Ivan (2012-10-31). 'Vivaldi remixed: classical music reinvents itself'. The Telegraph. ISSN0307-1235. Retrieved 2017-11-21.
8. ^'NZ Heatseeker Albums Chart'. Recorded Music NZ. March 26, 2018. Retrieved March 23, 2018.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)

The Seasons, Op. 37a^[1] (also seen as Op. 37b; Russian: Времена года; published with the French title Les Saisons), is a set of twelve short character pieces for solo piano by the Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. Each piece is the characteristic of a different month of the year in Russia. The work is also sometimes heard in orchestral and other arrangements by other hands. Individual excerpts have always been popular – Troika (November) was a favourite encore of Sergei Rachmaninoff,^[2] and Barcarolle (June) was enormously popular and appeared in numerous arrangements (for orchestra, violin, cello, clarinet, harmonium, guitar and even mandolin).

Background[edit]

The Seasons was commenced shortly after the premiere of Tchaikovsky's First Piano Concerto, and continued while he was completing his first ballet, Swan Lake.^[3]

In 1875, Nikolay Matveyevich Bernard, the editor of the St. Petersburg music magazine Nouvellist, commissioned Tchaikovsky to write 12 short piano pieces, one for each month of the year. Bernard suggested a subtitle for each month's piece. Tchaikovsky accepted the commission and all of Bernard's subtitles, and in the December 1875 edition of the magazine, readers were promised a new Tchaikovsky piece each month throughout 1876. The January and February pieces were written in late 1875 and sent to Bernard in December, with a request for some feedback as to whether they were suitable, and if not, Tchaikovsky would rewrite February and ensure the remainder were in the style Bernard was after. March, April and May appear to have been composed separately; however the remaining seven pieces were all composed at the same time and written in the same copybook, and evidence suggests they were written between 22 April and 27 May. The orchestration of Swan Lake was finished by 22 April, leaving the composer free to focus on other music; and he left for abroad at the end of May. This seems to put the lie to Nikolay Kashkin's published version of events, which was that each month the composer would sit down to write a single piece, but only after being reminded to do so by his valet.^[1]

The epigraphs that appeared on publication of the pieces were chosen by Bernard, not by Tchaikovsky. In 1886 the publisher P. Jurgenson acquired the rights to The Seasons and the piece has been reprinted many times.^[1]

Tchaikovsky did not devote his most serious compositional efforts to these pieces; they were composed to order, and they were a way of supplementing his income. He saw the writing of music to a commission as just as valid as writing music from his own inner inspiration; however, for the former he needed a definite plot or text, a time limit, and the promise of payment at the end. Most of the pieces were in simple ABA form, but each contains a minor melodic masterpiece.

The 12 pieces with their subtitles are:

1. January: At the Fireside (A major)
2. February: Carnival (D major)
3. March: Song of the Lark (G minor)
4. April: Snowdrop (B-flat major)
5. May: Starlit Nights (G major)
6. June: Barcarolle (G minor)
7. July: Song of the Reaper (E-flat major)
8. August: Harvest (B minor)
9. September: The Hunt (G major)
10. October: Autumn Song (D minor)
11. November: Troika (E major)
12. December: Christmas (A-flat major)

Orchestral and other arrangements[edit]

A number of musicians have orchestrated Tchaikovsky's pieces. Aleksandr Gauk arranged The Seasons for symphony orchestra in 1942. A Czech composer Václav Trojan did so as well. ^[4]Morton Gould retained the piano part for many of the pieces and orchestrated the work throughout, recording it with himself at the piano in 1951 for American Columbia.^[5] In 1965, Kurt-Heinz Stolze orchestrated a number of the pieces as part of the music for John Cranko's balletOnegin. More recent orchestral versions have been produced by David Matthews (1989, for symphony orchestra),^[6]Peter Breiner (for solo violin and symphony orchestra), and Georgii Cherkin (for solo piano and symphony orchestra). French composer Philippe Sarde arranged the Barcarolle as a main theme for the 1988 movie The Bear. Aleksandr Gedike made an arrangement for piano trio.^[5]Slava and Leonard Grigoryan recorded an arrangement of The Seasons for two guitars, in 2011 (arranged by their father Eduard Grigoryan). In 2011, Sergei Abir created a new orchestra version. And in 2020, Jessie Montgomery and Jannina Norpoth premiered a new arrangement with the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra at Carnegie Hall on January 25, 2020, under the direction of Vadim Gluzman.^[7]

Poetic epigraphs[edit]

Following is a translation of some of the poetic epigraphs contained in the Russian edition (all chosen by the publisher Nikolay Bernard):

1. Janvier (January): Au coin du feu (At the Fireside)

   January

   A little corner of peaceful bliss,

   the night dressed in twilight;

   the little fire is dying in the fireplace,

   and the candle has burned out.

   (Alexander Pushkin)

2. Février (February): Carnaval (Carnival)

   February

   At the lively Mardi Gras

   soon a large feast will overflow.

   (Pyotr Vyazemsky)

3. Mars (March): Chant de l'alouette (Song of the Lark)

   March

   The field shimmering with flowers,

   the stars swirling in the heavens,

   the song of the lark

   fills the blue abyss.

   (Apollon Maykov)

4. Avril (April): Perce-neige (Snowdrop)

   April

   The blue, pure snowdrop — flower,

   and near it the last snowdrops.

   The last tears over past griefs,

   and first dreams of another happiness.

   (A. Maykov)

5. Mai (May): Les nuits de mai (Starlit Nights)

   Mai

   What a night! What bliss all about!

   I thank my native north country!

   From the kingdom of ice, from the kingdom of snowstorms and snow,

   how fresh and clean May flies in!

   (Afanasy Fet)

6. Juin (June): Barcarolle (Barcarolle)

   June

   Let us go to the shore;

   there the waves will kiss our feet.

   With mysterious sadness

   the stars will shine down on us.

   (Aleksey Pleshcheyev)

7. Juillet (July): Chant du faucheur (Song of the Reaper)

   July

   Move the shoulders,

   shake the arms!

   And the noon wind

   breathes in the face!

   (Aleksey Koltsov)

8. Août (August): La moisson (Harvest)

   August

   The harvest has grown,

   people in families cutting the tall rye down to the root!

   Put together the haystacks,

   music screeching all night from the hauling carts.

   (A. Koltsov)

9. Septembre (September): La chasse (Hunting)

   September

   It is time! The horns are sounding!

   The hunters in their hunting dress

   are mounted on their horses;

   in early dawn the borzois are jumping.

   (A. Pushkin, Graf Nulin)

10. Octobre (October): Chant d'automne (Autumn Song)

    October

    Autumn, our poor garden is all falling down,

    the yellowed leaves are flying in the wind.

    (Aleksey Konstantinovich Tolstoy)

11. Novembre (November): Troïka (Troika)

    November

    In your loneliness do not look at the road,

    and do not rush out after the troika.

    Suppress at once and forever

    the fear of longing in your heart.

    (Nikolay Nekrasov)

12. Décembre (December): Noël (Christmas)

    December

    Once upon a Christmas night

    the girls were telling fortunes:

    taking their slippers off their feet

    and throwing them out of the gate.

    (Vasily Zhukovsky)

Four Seasons Classical Vivaldi

References[edit]

1. ^ ^abcTchaikovsky Research
2. ^Swan, Katherine; Swan, A. J. (April 1944). 'Rachmaninoff: Personal Reminiscences – Part II'. The Musical Quarterly. 30 (2): 174–191. JSTOR739451. He had to answer numberless curtain calls and play more encores: the Troika of Tchaikovsky, ...
3. ^Alexander Poznansky, Tchaikovsky: The Quest for the Inner Man
4. ^https://www.shazam.com/track/432501932/the-seasons-op-37-arr-václav-trojan-viii-august-harvest
5. ^ ^abhttp://en.tchaikovsky-research.net/pages/The_Seasons:_Recordings#Arrangements
6. ^https://www.fabermusic.com/repertoire/seasons-the-2451
7. ^https://orpheusnyc.org/event/vadim-gluzman-carnegie/

External links[edit]

• The Seasons: Scores at the International Music Score Library Project