Album: Vivaldi/Richter, The Four Seasons - Hope/DeRidder/KKB (Deutsche Grammophon)

Vivaldi was a prolific borrower. So let's not be huffy about Max Richter's "recomposition" of The Four Seasons.

Let's call it karma. A founder-member of Piano Circus, Richter slips softly back and forth between writing art music and film scores. Here, Vivaldi's harmonies are slowed to one or two chords per movement and melodic fragments are frozen and filleted. It brought me out in hives, but if you liked Pieces in a Modern Style, you will probably adore it.