‘The world was a bit too crazy. We have a moment to change things’
Pianist and composer Ludovico Einaudi talks to Alex Green about his new work
Ludovico Einaudi appears over video call framed by a vision of the French Alps, partially obscured by a fog which sits gently over his native Italy’s lush wine-producing region.
The classical pianist and composer has spent much of lockdown in splendid isolation at his recording studio in the north of the country.
He is keeping a musical diary and each day writes a piece of music – sometimes just a sketch – which he enters in a weighty red notepad. We speak on day 191 of his song diary.
“Before everything changed I felt the need to connect more deeply with nature,” he explains.
“The world was a bit too crazy for me. We have a good moment to decide to change things now.”
Born in Turin, Einaudi’s father was a publisher Giulio Einaudi, his grandfather the former president of Italy Luigi Einaudi. His mother, Renata Aldrovandi, played him the piano as a child, and her father Waldo was a pianist, opera conductor and composer.
Since Einaudi, 64, began releasing music in the late 80s his success has followed the playbook of the pop, rather than the classical, artist.
He has found unparalleled success among a young generation of streaming listeners, earning on average one million streams daily and a total of two billion streams.
And his atmospheric, cinematic music repeatedly tops the classical charts globally.
“I grew up listening to lots of popular music because I always liked the fact it is more direct.
“Sometimes when you play music that was written 100 years ago it can be a masterpiece…but sometimes it is difficult to read a message from over 100 years ago and take all the dust out of it and look at it with a new eye – a new vision.”
Asked about his influences, Einaudi has previously offered up some unlikely choices, Radiohead and Eminem among them. Today he discusses modern classical greats, world music and Bruce Springsteen.
“I have been listening to classical contemporary music from Arvo Part to Philip Glass,” he offers. “At the same time I love to listen to folk music from different parts of the world, African music, especially from Mali.
“Two days ago I was driving and listening to Nebraska by Bruce Springsteen so it really depends. I don’t have a plan and there is nothing predicable in what I listen to.”
Einaudi recently completed Seven Days Walking – seven albums recorded in seven months, each inspired by a series of winter walks he took in the Alps. Now he has collated Einaudi Undiscovered, a collection of rarities and unreleased tracks. It includes Elegy For The Arctic, a collaboration with Greenpeace to publicise their conservation efforts in the region.
In a suitably dramatic music video, Einaudi plays piano on a specially built “iceberg”’ within 100 metres of a crumbling glacier.
“This was where you are connected with nature and you have respect for nature and for the environment that you are living in."
● Einaudi Undiscovered is out now on Decca Records..