This is another in a series we’ve encountered before,
with Mahler’s unfinished Symphony No. 10 emerging
as an intriguing and at times lugubrious monument through the
mind of Matthew Herbert (see review).
To my mind this was ultimately unsatisfying as a piece in its
own right, but appreciation goes out to Deutsche Grammophon
for daring to seek out and support musical byways beyond the
mainstream.
You can’t get much more mainstream than Vivaldi’s
Four Seasons when it comes to classical record repertoire,
and I don’t suppose there are many of you who have only
one version on your shelf or hard-drive somewhere. This is much
loved and immensely popular music and justly so, with Vivaldi’s
colourfully descriptive music offering up a seemingly endless
source for interpretation and virtuoso display. Have you never
wondered what it would be like to find a genuinely ‘new’
Vivaldi Four Seasons?
I have to admit coming to Max Richter’s ‘Recomposed’
album having already read reviews ranging from the incurably
bewildered and confused to the damningly critical, so I wasn’t
expecting to like it much. The project is not without its weaknesses
it has to be said, but I have to declare being pleasantly surprised
by this CD. Given some moments of respectably subtle electronic
treatment here and there, this is largely a well performed genuine
string orchestra recording with superb solo lines from Daniel
Hope, and as a result it largely lives up to the deliberately
‘classic’ DG cover design and yellow tulip-ringed
CD like an old LP label, providing a nicely produced and highly
satisfying listening experience.
The more you listen to this music the more you discover about
its sources, and the eclectic nature of much of what is going
on is my main problem with the final result. There are almost
inevitable associations with the Balanescu/Nyman/Baroque Pastiche
axis throughout this disc, and this almost unavoidable connection
has to be forgiven. Many of the tracks have a distinctly film-music
feel though, and I would bet a fistful of dollars that there
will be sections from this album appearing over a Hollywood
romance or desolate battlefield in search of something other
than Barber’s Adagio in a cinema near you soon.
The opening is an all too short “dubby cloud” of
treated string sound which reminds me of bits of John Adams’
Shaker Loops. This moves directly into a Spring 1
with some nice added pastoral Aaron Copland bass lines. Spring
2 is directly descended from Philip Glass in lyrical mood,
and Spring 4 is that faintly amusing romantic scene with
our young things missing each other unwittingly and constantly
in fountain-rich parks and bustling shopping malls. Summer
1 sounds like straight Vivaldi until variation is added
into those rhythmic chords to create a dynamic field of sound
over which the solo violin can soar. The truncated ending is
Nyman-esque, but Richter avoids further association through
some nice harmonic twists and by not adding in wailing saxophones.
Summer 2 is an atmospheric war-movie suspense moment,
with singing telegraph-wire upper strings, gently clattering
middle voices and a descending bass-line passacaglia to support
some moody solo lines on solo violin and cello. Thankfully stopping
short of adding drums of one kind or another, Summer 3
is exciting “relentless pulsed music”, the unprepared
violin solo entry at 0:31 the first of only a very few genuinely
clunky compositional moments.
Autumn 1 will remind listeners of a certain age of misused
LPs in which needles jumped grooves, Vivaldi’s music having
had little bits chopped out of it. This is one of Richter’s
less glorious ideas, though convincingly played by Hope and
the orchestra. Autumn 2 places a harpsichord and the
strings in an acoustic halo, seeking associations with “pop
records from the 1970s… including various Beach Boys albums
and the Beatles’ Abbey Road.” Very brief,
Autumn 2 brings us back to somewhere near Appalachia
crossed with John Adams. Winter 1’s crisp chills
are again almost pure Vivaldi on a dirty LP which is making
the needle jump again, this time to create a groovy syncopation
which alas grows old very quickly. Winter 2 will appear
in our Hollywood film in that chill moment after lots of horrendous
things have happened and suspicion still lingers behind the
eyes of our young things, just before the final reconciliation
and unexpected happy ending - the glance of recognition through
a frosted pane of glass in a fraction of time which could go
either way for our young things. Winter 3 is a speeded
up moment which you may or may not be able to stretch back out
and drop into something like Gorecki’s Symphony of
Sorrowful Songs.
For all my glib remarks dumped on a lot of people’s hard
work, this is the kind of well performed and produced CD which
can form an undemanding popular introduction to ‘the real
thing’ for a wide audience, or additional Vivaldi fun
for committed fans of The Four Seasons who might have
it as the only ‘classical’ disc in their collection.
Weighed up against the original, I would say Max Richter’s
Recomposed adds more of a series of novelty appendages
to Vivaldi’s Four Seasons rather than really extending
our enjoyment of or introducing genuinely new perspectives on
this baroque masterpiece. In other words, I’ll still be
taking a good performance of the Vivaldi over this to my desert
island given the choice. This comment of course misses the point
of this release, and I doubt Max Richter would make any claim
that he is ‘improving’ Vivaldi with this recording.
The questions are: does it stand on its own right? Yes, but
jaw-droppingly original and destined for classic status it ain’t.
Does it add something new? The answer again is yes: new and
attractive, but alas not really innovative, given the shopping
list of somewhat stereotypical nuances and clearly traceable
influences.
Dominy Clements
|
Support
us financially by purchasing this disc from:
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Daniel Hope (violin) 