Max Richter and the RTÉ Concert Orchestra: Recomposed
Something Kind of Wonderful stage, All Together Now
★★★★☆
Max Richter has described his take on Vivaldi’s Four Seasons as “like seeing a sculpture from a different angle”. Different but also familiar: on his duo of reworkings of Vivaldi, released a decade apart, Richter dispenses with three-quarters of the original Four Seasons and layers what remains in experimental minimalism and electronic glitches.
It’s a clever clogs treatment which changes shape once again as Richter brings the project to the final day of All Together Now. The German-born British composer is dressed in simple black and grey. His name shines brightly on the screen overhead. He is joined by the RTÉ Concert Orchestra for a live deconstruction of Vivaldi that brims with pure joy.
Visually, the performance is arresting. Richter stands in front of the orchestra. He is mysteriously manipulating a laptop – for all we know he could be booking his holidays. Arranged across the stage are the RTÉ players, while front and centre is Norwegian violinist Mari Samuelsen. The spotlight is as much on her as Richter. When a familiar refrain from Vivaldi swoops through, she takes command with her molten playing; even if you couldn’t tell Vivaldi from the middle aisle at Aldi, it is breathtaking.
Classical music is traditionally enjoyed sitting down. Watched in a tent at a festival there is the curious sensation of observing an experiment that shouldn’t work. It helps that the audience, having soaked up a day of sunshine, is in the mood for something different. Which is one word for the punter at the back holding up what appears to be a huge cardboard likeness of Enoch Burke.
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Richter’s Vivaldi is at once stormy and intense and hazy and mysterious. As the end of the weekend approaches, one performance has started to blur into the another. But Max Richter’s Recomposed stands apart. With summer finally arriving at All Together Now, he brings all four seasons, remixed and wonderful.
