Via WQXR
On Thursday, Dec. 20, Q2 Music presented a live webcast of violinist Daniel Hope and Ensemble LPR performing Max Richter’s acclaimed deconstruction of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons.
A modern take of the legendary concertos, Vivaldi Recomposed takes its cue from the practices of electronic music, sampling melodic fragments of the Vivaldi masterpiece, and reworking them via phrase elongations, reductions and loops to be interspersed within Richter’s original music. The resulting album functions powerfully both as a highly personal work and a homage to the Baroque composer.
The second half of the evening features Max Richter on piano accompanied by string quartet and electronics performing selections from INFRA – a darkly atmospheric album from 2010 based on an earlier collaboration with choreographer Wayne McGregor and artist Julian Opie and inspired by T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land.
Vivaldi Recomposed features British violinist Daniel Hope (the soloist on the recorded work) with (Le) Poisson Rouge’s own Ensemble LPR, under the direction of newly-appointed conductor Tito Muñoz. Daniel Hope appears courtesy of Deutsche Grammophon Gesellschaft.
The December 19 and 20 performances of Vivaldi Recomposed: The Four Seasons mark the U.S. debut of the composition.