Less is more: an unlikely mantra for the crossover star. The field of popular classical music is stuffed with brash personalities – brooding tenors, teeth-and-tits mezzos – and revels in cliché and the thrill of celebrity. It is, however, one that has served Ludovico Einaudi extraordinarily well.
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| Ludovico Einaudi is in the UK for his latest tour |
Given this bundle of contradictions, the circumstances of our encounter seem oddly apt. We meet in a soulless West End hotel; there’s a piped version of “What a Wonderful World” tinkling in the background and the decor is heavy on chintz and fake marble. But Einaudi hovers amid this sensory assault like a living advertisement for restraint, in black trousers, a black pullover and black-rimmed glasses. He’s in London as part of the promotional tour of his recent album, Nightbook, which nudged Katherine Jenkins down the classical charts when it shot in at second place last month. Over a pot of English Breakfast tea (funny, I had him down as a herbal man), he starts by explaining the inspiration behind this latest project.
Two years ago, he was asked to play a concert to accompany an installation piece called Seven Heavenly Palaces by the German artist Anselm Kiefer. These huge concrete towers surrounded by shattered glass were exhibited in the Hangar Bicocca in Milan, an industrial space with a reverberating acoustic, “like a cathedral – very beautiful”, that presented new challenges. “I went there for the performance and realised I couldn’t play the music that I had already written; the situation needed something very different. So I went home and wrote down – quickly, because I didn’t have much time – some sketches with the idea of improvising around them.”
Nightbook is an attempt to replicate the sound and fluidity of that performance but, as with previous albums, the music is difficult to place. Minimalist? Ambient? Soft rock? Einaudi would deny all three. While earlier work focused on solo piano, Nightbook involves a band (a string quartet of sorts, a percussionist and guitarists) and, more significantly, a laptop techie. Some tracks seem to emulate the Icelandic folk-rockers Sigur Rós with lush, anthemic crescendos, while the skittish percussion of “Lady Labyrinth” evokes Radiohead’s recent output. But his fans have come to expect a certain formula: might the move from unplugged to electric prove to be Einaudi’s “Judas” moment?
“I always consider the emotion of the music even if the sound is different, and I think what I’ve seen up until now with Nightbook is that people believe it is coming from the heart,” he replies. The topic of Einaudi’s heart pops up frequently, and his speech – quiet and in excellent English – is often spun into catchy poetic lines. Likewise his song and album titles, 2007’s Divenire (“to become”), for example, suggest ideas that are simple yet profound and transcendent, and his audiences respond with gushing sentiment. Einaudi’s website is alive with pseudo-philosophical banter and people have been known to break down in tears at his concerts.
“Sometimes you realise the emotions in the music have become much bigger than expected,” he explains, “and sometimes you have to protect yourself a bit because people start to recognise all their dreams in your music.”
Einaudi is that rare thing: a musician who acquired pop-star status with middle age. Born in Turin into a distinguished family (his grandfather, Luigi Einaudi, was the second postwar president of the Italian republic), he studied at the Conservatorio Verdi in Milan – dominated, in the late 1970s, by the new wave of the European avant-garde. Only Luciano Berio, a composer known for his idiosyncrasies, struck a chord: “Compared to others of that generation he was open to different musical languages: he was interested in folk music, we could talk about The Beatles, and African choral music.”
For a number of years Einaudi dutifully toed the line but he tired of music that he describes as cerebral and unmoving. “I’ve always liked music that opens my heart and I thought, well, I cannot write music that is as cold as a stone, so I started to break the rules.” With the simple, melodic compositions of his first solo recording, Le Onde (“the waves”) of 1996, he forged his own career – but there were repercussions.
“All the doors in the contemporary academic world had been open to me but with Le Onde they started to close: they snubbed me as if I had made a commercial choice.” And it wasn’t just the academic establishment; when broadsheet newspapers do cover his work the reviews are almost invariably negative. “Of course, it’s not nice if the critics are prepared with their knives sharpened but part of my choice was to move away from the academic circle of the critics and the institutions. I think it’s better to take some risk.”
I ask whether Berio, who died in 2003, was supportive of his new career. “He was respectful,” Einaudi replies. “I understand that he wasn’t really with me when I took my personal path but there was an emotional connection between us so there was never any real conflict.”
As well as questioning his artistic credibility, there are many who criticise Einaudi’s involvement with advertising. Over the past year alone he has contributed music to commercials for American Airlines, Orange and NBA basketball. But how would Einuadi defend his decisions in the face of those who frown on this lucrative sideline?
“I’m against it when they use the music of Bizet’s Carmen, for example, to promote a soap or something – we don’t have the permission of the composer and I think it spoils this music as a piece of art. But I’m alive,” Einaudi argues, “and I can consider what’s good for me or not.”
At the gig later that evening Einaudi and his band play to a capacity house. It has the feel of a pop concert: woozy light effects; a programme offers us T-shirts, vinyl, CDs. At the concert’s close, the audience leap to their feet, whooping and cheering the ensemble into four encores.
‘Nightbook’ tour continues around Europe until December 23; www.einaudiwebsite.com
