Musical voyage

Ludovico Einaudi is among the most in-demand contemporary pianists in Europe due to his unmistakably sweeping and passionate compositions, which are influenced by minimalist, classical, ambient, world, folk and popular music. His performance at the Rudolfinum Friday night should provide a strong finish for this year's Strings of Autumn Festival.

Einaudi was in Berlin two weeks ago to help commemorate the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Speaking to The Prague Post the morning after his performance there, he said he's looking forward to his concert debut in Prague.

"I was in Prague a couple times before, recording with the Czech Philharmonic," Einaudi said. "But this will be my first concert there."

Einaudi worked closely with the orchestra on the soundtrack of a German television production of Doctor Zhivago, filmed in Prague in 2001, and again in 2003 on music for the acclaimed Italian film Sotto Falso Nome by Robert Aldo. "It was fantastic," he said of the experience. "I really enjoyed working with the people, and the sound of their orchestra is one of my favorites."  

Besides that, he loves the city. "Prague is absolutely magical. I was born in Torino, and Prague too is like this. I remember walking along the river - earlier, so I saw the city before it was polished, and after. So, for me, it is still beautiful."

Einaudi, whose music is often compared to that of Michael Nyman and Philip Glass, was born in 1955 and trained at the Conservatorio in Milan. He continued his studies with the help of a scholarship at the Tanglewood Music Program in Boston. He's also studied with the experimental Italian composer Luciano Berio, whose other students include Steve Reich and the Grateful Dead's Phil Lesh.

Einaudi's first album, Le Onde (1996), was a cycle of solo piano ballads inspired by Virginia Woolf's 1931 novel The Waves. His follow-up, Eden Roc, was released in 1999 and featured Djivan Gasparyan from Armenia, who played the dudek to better explore popular and traditional music of the Caucasus and the Balkans.

With I Giorni (2001), Einaudi continued to explore traditional folk music, this time inspired by a single melancholic song he heard on the radio while driving in Mali with the musician Toumani Diabate. He learned from Diabate that it was a 12th-century song about a much-loved hippo, pampered by inhabitants of nearby villages as if it were their child, then one day tragically killed by a hunter. The song is still sung in present times whenever a king or important person dies, or in memory of a lost loved one. Einaudi was so enchanted by this song he recorded 14 improvised variations on the melody. The final product was like a suite of exquisite pieces in the form of an instrumental song.

For Einaudi, such traditional roots music contains a language that everyone can understand. He tries to achieve a similar common language in his music, though the stories he tells are uniquely his own, drawn from feelings, memories and personal experiences. He uses simple, repetitive piano loops, usually as the base of his songs, overlaid with a slow flourish of improvisation or arranged melodies.

Asked to describe the feeling he has playing live, Einaudi says, "It is a mixed feeling when I play solo. I don't like to prepare a list or sequence of music. I have a little notebook with titles of music I want to play, then the list gets too full, so I have many little islands. With this, I decide where to go and where to stop, like I'm on a little sailing boat. I like to keep my spirit unique on that night, with music for the moment. It is important to reach a point where everything is moving and flowing, so the music depends on a lot of circumstances - it is like a voyage for me to try to feel the music."

The announced program for his appearance here is drawn from his two latest albums, Una Mattina (2004), and Divenire (2008, Ponderosa). However, who knows what else he might have in his notebook? If you don't already have a ticket, you'll have to get lucky at the venue on Friday night. In any case, be prompt, as the concert starts at 7:30 and has no intermission.

Tony Ozuna can be reached at
features@praguepost.com