Max Richter's
2012 Recomposed album was an enormous success, topping charts in many countries (not just the usual classical-oriented ones) and making its way onto numerous soundtracks, including that for the television series Bridgerton. For those rare souls who haven't encountered it, it was a sort of contemporary remake of
Vivaldi's
Four Seasons violin concertos, using the originals as thematic source material to a greater or lesser degree and subjecting them to electronic treatment. It has become almost as ubiquitous as the concertos on which it was based. Now,
Richter has remade
Recomposed, even recomposing it a bit; the new album is just under four minutes shorter than its predecessor. He also recruits London's ethnically diverse
Chineke! Orchestra, gives them gut-stringed period instruments on which to play (the players were using these for the first time, and this works quite a bit better than you might expect), and collaborates with a new violinist, the wirier
Elena Urioste in place of
Daniel Hope, and also uses "period" electronics, playing a vintage Moog synthesizer himself.
Deutsche Grammophon's notes reassure classical listeners that they may not recognize the difference between the Moog and the earlier contemporary electronics, and perhaps this is a problem as well for the many young electronic music fans who have come to
Richter, but for anyone around in the 1970s,
Richter's bass lines and sonic washes will be quite recognizable. Is
Richter simply trying to milk his original concept? Maybe, but in a sense, this was and remains the point.
Richter has written that he wanted to use period instruments on the
original Recomposed recording but couldn't interest recording companies in the idea. They add a fresh wrinkle to the sound, and the whole new project is an intriguing attempt to see what remains of
Vivaldi in an era when music evolves through remixes and through sampling of earlier material rather than being fixed and discrete. There is even a "Levitation Mix" of the "Spring 1" movement, as if to say that the process will continue beyond its latest iteration. It's safe to say that this release has something to offer even to those who know the
original Recomposed album well, or for that matter, who know the original
Four Seasons well. ~ James Manheim