Vivaldi's Four Seasons may be the most widely heard piece of classical music ever composed. As the composer Max Richter suggests, “The piece is part of the musical
landscape, and a part of my daily life. I hear it in supermarkets, and it’s always turning up in TV ads.” He has approached his "Vivaldi Recomposed"-project as an admirer of Vivaldi, but no less importantly, as a composer. “Anything that a composer writes is part of a conversation with music that has gone before,” he says. Affection is an integral part of Max Richter’s Vivaldi Recomposed. His “post-classical idiom” draws inspiration from influences like electronic music, punk, club music, psychedelic rock.
Max Richter’s co-conspirators are Daniel Hope, the British violinist; and the orchestra "l'arte del mondo" (artistic director is the violinist Werner Ehrhardt). A former member
of the Beaux Arts Trio, Hope is both a notable champion of contemporary music and an exponent of the standard classical repertoire. That makes him the ideal soloist for
Richter’s piece.