Recomposed BY Max Richter Vivardi

“Humphrey’s utter absorption and delight shines forth at every turn… strong toned, easy fluidity and immaculate technique” - Gramophone. Since winning the BBC Music Magazine Instrumental award in 2018 Fenella Humphreys has been in demand throughout the UK and Europe. Post minimalist composer Max Richter has composed many successful film scores, most recently ‘Mary Queen of Scots’, ‘White Boy Rick’ and ‘Black Mirror’. His 2012 ‘Recomposed’ topped the charts in 22 countries. His beautifully crafted intelligent work based on the famous concertos by Vivaldi retains only a quarter of the original music; Richter skilfully employs looped and phased parts of pure Vivaldi which emphasise his postmodern and minimalist credentials. Fenella partners ‘Recomposed’ with the powerful ‘Lonely Angel’ by Vasks and Pärt’s popular ‘Fratres’.

When Max Richter’s Recomposed first exploded into our collective ears almost a decade ago, a 59-minutes-28-seconds sonic starburst, the effect for so many people was total. We hadn’t heard anything like that, ever. Experiencing it felt as though we were being catapulted onto another plane, reverberated through the cosmos by this epiphanic soundworld. In this “alternative rendering”, Chineke!, the groundbreaking British ensemble consisting of majority Black, Asian and ethnically diverse musicians, and the brilliant soloist, Elena Urioste, are playing on gut strings and period instruments: the sort that Vivaldi would have heard, and played, in his own time.

2 CD product curated by Max - 1 CD of original compositions from Max’s catalogue of successful solo albums, and a second CD comprised of music and movie themes and soundtracks.

A decade on from the release of his mesmerising Recomposed album, trailblazing composer Max Richter returns to the sound world of Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. Recorded with violinist Elena Urioste and the musicians of Chineke! Orchestra, The New Four Seasons sees Richter create a new version of his Recomposed score for period instruments – using gut strings and vintage synthesisers to create a “grittier, more punk rock sound”.

Having made a gradual switch during the 15 years since his first album was published from electronica to instrumental variations on ambient and minimalism, Max Richter is among the most commercially successful composers of our time. This album of his solo piano music belongs in the genre explored so thoroughly for Brilliant Classics by Jeroen van Veen, whose prolific recording history includes hugely popular albums of Philip Glass (BC9419) and Michael Nyman (BC95112), Ludovico Einaudi (BC94910) and Yann Tiersen (BC95129) and his fellow Dutch musician Jakob ter Veldhuis (BC94873) and himself (BC9454). The appetite for slowly moving, unchallenging, post-Minimalist music is apparently infinite, and so this new album is sure to be a success.