The Sound of Appropriation

Recomposition, reinvention, and other polite ways of saying “this is mine now.”

appropriation? - 2024

I recently watched a sort of documentary on Max Richter’s Recomposed: Vivaldi – The Four Seasons on Arte. For those of you who don’t know Arte, it’s a French-German TV channel dedicated to culture in the widest possible sense of the word. It covers everything from classical music to rap, from arthouse films to interviews with contemporary artists, from science and history to politics and current affairs. But — and this is the important part — it does so in a way that’s actually interested in society, not just market trends and GDP. If I sound like I’m trying to sell you on it, I am. It’s free. You might need to create an account. It may only be accessible in Europe. Or via VPN. That’s on you.

Anyway, back to Richter. This particular “documentary” — I keep calling it that but I’m not convinced it is one — shows a full recording of Recomposed performed in Berlin earlier this year, overlayed with commentary by various musicians. Some had performed the piece, others were just visibly moved by it, and some clearly wanted to prove they knew what they were talking about. Notably absent: Max Richter himself, which was a shame.

I love Recomposed. Especially Spring and Summer. Summer 01 and 03 give me goosebumps every single time. They’re impossibly beautiful. And I say that as someone who doesn’t swoon easily. I’m not one for exaggeration. If anything, I tend to understate, to suggest rather than proclaim, to hide in overlong sentences and half-meant phrases. Saying something is too beautiful to put into words — and meaning it — is rare. I love music, but I know nothing about it. So the idea of writing about it publicly feels a little absurd. But here we are.

One thing that did stay with me — aside from the music itself — was a comment, almost a throwaway, by one of the musicians. Apparently, Richter had fallen out of love with Vivaldi’s Four Seasons. Which I suppose makes sense. If you’re a classical musician or composer, you probably hear it so often it eventually turns into musical wallpaper. The solution? He reworked it. Rewrote it. Recomposed it. Not as a homage, not as a challenge, not even as a modernisation — but, according to the comment, as a way to reclaim it. That word stuck. If it’s what they used. I watched it in French. The idea stuck. Reclaim. As if the piece had been taken from him and this was a way of getting it back.

As someone who works with found images — and occasionally, found ideas — this obviously struck a chord. Yes, pun intended, let’s get that out of the way.

I’m a collage artist. Which means I spend a lot of time cutting, arranging, layering, and generally reworking things that often weren’t originally mine into something I can claim. Not legally, not monetarily, and certainly not in the academic sense of authorship — but in the much murkier, private sense of “this is mine now.” Sometimes the changes are extensive. Sometimes they’re minimal — so minimal that I wouldn’t show them to anyone because they barely register as new. But even then, the act of doing something to the image — cropping, removing, placing, combining — creates a kind of ownership that isn’t literal but still feels real. I’ve made it mine, somehow. And I’m under no illusions about what that means.

2024

Reclaiming something through reworking it. That idea hasn’t left me since I heard it in that not-quite-documentary. I don’t know what Richter meant, exactly. I haven’t gone looking for interviews or artist statements. I don’t want to. I like the ambiguity. I like that it made me think about my own practice — and about appropriation in general — in ways I hadn’t before. Or at least hadn’t put into words.

Appropriation is a complicated word. It’s heavy with ethical and political weight — and rightly so. There are moral dimensions to it that range from cultural appropriation to copyright law, with more grey areas than anyone seems comfortable acknowledging. But there are also deeply personal dimensions. Where does influence end and appropriation begin? When is it homage, when inspiration, and when is it theft? Is it always wrong to borrow from something — or someone — not your own? Is it more acceptable when the culture you’re taking from is dominant, mainstream, or already heavily represented? Is it less acceptable when the culture is overlooked or historically marginalised? It seems to be, judging by how the discourse plays out. Whether that’s fair or useful is another question.

I don’t have answers. I’m not even sure I’m asking the right questions. I just know that when I work, I’m not inventing anything from scratch. I see something — an image, an idea, a way of combining things — and I feel something. Usually admiration. Sometimes envy. Sometimes a desire to take that thing and make it mine, because I know I wouldn’t have come up with it myself. Or because I couldn’t. I lack that particular technique, patience to learn it, or the time. Often all three.

So I take it. I cut it, reframe it, make it speak in a different voice. And somewhere in that process, it shifts. It doesn’t become mine in any objective sense, but in my head, it does. Not for public display. Not to claim credit. Just to live with. Like a secret. Or a keepsake. Or a minor crime you’re strangely proud of.

Richter apparently discarded 75% of Vivaldi’s original material. The rest he rewrote, looped, layered — all the techniques that define postmodern music. And art. But those are technical terms. What he really did was something deeply human: he took a piece he could no longer love, and changed it until he could. If that’s not what all artists do at some point, I don’t know what is.

This made me wonder how common that instinct is in fields I know nothing about. Do architects revisit buildings they once admired but now find clumsy, and redesign them in their heads? Do writers re-read old books and wish they could edit them? Do chefs rework childhood meals they used to hate into Michelin-worthy dishes? They do. That much I know. There’s something universal in that need to rework what we inherit. To make it livable. To make it speak to us again.

I’ve come to see everything as collage. Not just in art, but in life. Our personalities are patchworks of experiences and influences, many of which we didn’t choose. The rest we stitched in later, consciously or not. The way we speak, dress, behave, even the opinions we hold — all borrowed, rearranged, adapted. Some people are unaware of this. Others spend their entire lives trying to reinvent themselves — how they look, how they sound, how they’re perceived. All of that is collage. We live in a permanent state of recomposition.

I realise this is maybe the beginning of another essay. Or an entirely different rabbit hole. But I suppose I’m just thinking out loud at this point.

What stayed with me most from watching Recomposed wasn’t the commentary, or even the performance — though both were excellent. It was that simple, almost accidental idea: reworking something in order to reclaim it. There’s a kind of quiet power in that. It’s not about fixing or improving. It’s about changing the relationship you have to something. And in doing that, you inevitably change yourself a little too.

So listen to Max Richter’s Recomposed: Vivaldi – The Four Seasons. That’s really all I wanted to say, and look where we ended up.

And if you don’t like it — well, I won’t say you’re wrong. But I might quietly rearrange at least part of your opinion, if you care to share, and make it mine.

See you again soon, I hope, and please share thoughts and ideas in the comments,

P