As Richter himself said, he has kept the gestures, shapes, textures and dynamics of the Vivaldi, and despite using only a quarter of the original music, the parts that he does use are employed over and over again. He refragments Vivaldis original, extracting individual moments, stripping them bare and relayering them

Has he actually through this medium taught us something new about the original?

PLAN OF ACTION

Play excerpts from 4 seasons: Richter 1 min total So can anyone guess the original work that the composer has used as a basis for this new work?

Well its Vivaldis four seasons, arguably his most famous work, so what drove Max Richter to take on one of the biggest baroque names, how did he ensure the line from recomposition to parody was never crossed?

The principal of Richters process is fairly simple, and yet like any of the processes we have looked at in group work entirely transformative. His work is heavily grounded in minimalism this is most evident in his recomposition of spring, the use of phasing and looping to turn a phrase which in the original Vivaldi may have been lost or unrepeated or simply used as a link becomes the melodic and harmonic focus for listener, Richter makes the phrases he uses unavoidable through repetition. This layering looping and phasing creates a real sense of growth which is entirely appropriate for spring, a quality which was in the original to an extent but again Richter gives this quality a new importance and focus which. Original: 10 secsRichter: 20 secs

Both Vivaldi and Richter's works are built upon a process of building up passages from repeating motivic and rhythmic fragments. Yet whereas Vivaldi ensures the virtuosic violin playing is of prominence Richter shows us another side to this piece continually hinting that there is some much more content here than we imagine and what better way is there to show how much potential is left untapped in the original score than to recompose it using only a quarter of the original material and still producing a 45 minute piece. As well as minimalism Richter's process is heavily influenced by Stravinsky, he incorporates into his method three of the main tenants of Stravinskys music.namely: drobnost meaning splinteredness or a sum of its parts, whereby everything is constructed in blocks; nepodvizhnost stasis, with no directed linear motion, constructed by immobile ostinatos that are repeated rather than thematically developed; and hypostatisation a focus on the moment as an independent event

The individual movements can be divided into blocks consisting of ostinato repeating motifs, contrasted with moments of complete stasis such as the one in Summer III, and Richters prominent use of cyclical repetition creates an intense focus here we see his inclusion of Stravinskys hypostatisation Example 20 secs

But we return the question of why Vivaldi why this famous work, Ive hinted at some of the possible reasons already a very large one I feel is the sheer amount of untapped source material contained in this work, another key reason to use this piece is the backbone Vivaldi provides the gestures shapes textures dynamics of the original piece are so solid a foundation the recomposition of the top is sure to be stable.despite using only a quarter of the original music, the parts that he does use are employed over and over again. He refragments Vivaldis original, extracting individual moments, stripping them bare and relayering them for all hear this original piece through a new modern medium