Tuning Up a Masterpiece

[mjzee]

Brace yourself, music lovers: Antonio Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" has come to Greenwich Village. (Le) Poisson Rouge, an ultratrendy nightspot (superfluous parentheses in the original) that bills itself as a "multimedia art cabaret" seeking to "revive the symbiotic relationship between art and revelry," booked a two-night run of classical music's most overplayed masterpiece.

Why? Because "The Four Seasons" has been refurbished by Max Richter, an avant-garde composer of minimalist inclination, and recorded for Deutsche Grammophon by violinist Daniel Hope, who played it earlier this week at (Le) Poisson Rouge. And before you bruise your eyeballs by rolling them, here's the real surprise: "Recomposed by Max Richter," as Mr. Hope's new CD is called, is a bewitchingly brilliant musical hybrid that manages against all odds to breathe life into an exhausted warhorse that a great many listeners—myself included—long ago ceased to find listenable.

More here:

WSJ

[danasgoodstuff]

Big deal, local Saskatoon rockers, Mozart & the Wolf Gang, did this 40 years ago, and probably better. "4Seasons" with a harmonica solo anyone?

[A Lark Ascending]

an exhausted warhorse

Appreciate that the quote above is hype, but is The Four Seasons really an exhausted warhorse that needs new life breathing into it? Overplayed, undoubtedly, but listen to it on your own terms and its a thoroughly engaging piece.

Nothing wrong with doing this to 'the classics' - Uri Caine's been playing this game for a while and all manner of people from The Nice back to John Kirby and beyond have had fun doing this sort of thing.

I recall a big deal being made about playing the Four Seasons amplified and with a light show in London in the 80s.

Seems to be more about hitching a ride to a very popular piece of music than an act of vital resuscitation.