Ludovico Einaudi
Divenire

Ludovico Einaudi is a nepotist. Son of publisher Giulio Einaudi, nephew of former President of the Republic Luigi Einaudi. A surname like that does not go unnoticed, in any field: Ludovico chose music, in its most orchestral sense, and popular approval came, even though the field is not one of the most accessible. But that Einaudi speaks volumes, and reveals the mystery.

Ludovico Einaudi is an old, paunchy man, a fake intellectual. Elegant, sober, charming, somewhat sarcastic, meditative, all characteristics that may suit both those who live and breathe music every day, and those who camouflage a communicative wall of bleak nothingness behind a mysterious and, anyhow, always sought-after air. It's obvious to say which of the two categories the subject in question might belong to.

Ludovico Einaudi is also a truly mediocre pianist. Very simplistic, terribly banal, and moreover, very repetitive. You listen to one album, and you already know how the next one will sound. You can predict the break, the melodic solution, the instrumental intent. You can overhear his songs and repeat them identically right after, even if that series of black and white keys reflected by shiny varnish tells you absolutely nothing. You barely have time to internally congratulate him for a well-executed passage, and already, after a couple of minutes, he proposes it again, maybe in a different key and scale, but it is always the same. And it remains.

Ludovico Einaudi is, finally, rather odious as a character. He gives interviews where he talks about things he doesn't know, in which he fails to explain why his total compositional impoverishment persists. You wouldn't be able to defend him even if you wanted to because his wordy circumlocutions make him unlikable even to you. You can't figure out what he proposes: ambient, classical, baroque, jazz, minimalism, orchestral? Or just a big reheated stew where everything tastes of everything and, in the end, of nothing at all? An uninspired collage, with no personality or inventive flair?

All of this is absolutely true.

But then he comes in 2006, this "Divenire," just a year after the split with Ballaké Sissoko, a Malian kora player, certainly not mediocre, pseudo-intellectual, or even recommended. And, I add, decidedly more exotic and original than our compatriot.

The title and cover suffice. Shallow Jarrettian philosophy and poorly assimilated at that. Another useless work of an overestimated artist. Then you look at the duration: an hour and a quarter. Tsk. I will never listen to it. Let's also add that for this session, Ludovico Einaudi went to record in Tibet, with the Himalayas before him, and we have the perfect anthrax package.

This is also true. But there's no harm in trying, is there?

So, briefly: "Uno" is intangible, "Divenire" has a terribly boring crescendo, "Monday" struggles with a pianistic section that is absolutely saccharine, "Andare" resumes the theme of the opener -with more boredom, it must be said-, "Rose" is cute, if it weren't for the fact that Ludovico Einaudi is fifty-two years old and not fifteen, "Primavera" pleases but has an insert of strings in the middle that is fluttering and absolutely inconclusive, "Oltremare" is long (eleven minutes) and miserably drowns in a rainstorm of a thousand recycled motifs before even half of it has passed, "L'Origine Nascosta" is simply useless, "Fly" is a bad summary of what's been followed so far, "Ascolta" is very slow and monotonous, "Ritornare" and "Svanire" are beautiful, glossy, excessively stretched reworkings of themselves, in a whirlwind of vacuity.

Ok, all clear.

Good. Now, answer this question: why does Ludovico Einaudi manage to move me differently every time, to convey a very powerful load of sensations, despite having a technical instrument skill dangerously close to zero? What makes him special, to me, in the midst of a host of much more deserving, much less hyped, much more original, and yes, let's add it: much younger artists? I'm not interested if Einaudi graduated from the "Giuseppe Verdi" Conservatory in Milan because the results still do not show. He wants to make records to sell, but he regularly fails and, inadvertently, he carves a piece of himself inside them.

Einaudi does not mistreat the piano, nor does he have a relationship of subservience with it. His is, always and in any case, a light touch, in search of the plebeian sound and the chromatic juxtaposition that marries the most chronic boredom: you will never find abrupt restarts within this "Divenire," no matter how many times you flip through it. The strings and synthesizers, in the background, draw arabesques that neither amaze nor captivate, parodying themselves and their absurd romanticism. Add one plus one, and you would have the complete disaster, yet no: despite canceling each other out, the two elements complement each other and fit perfectly, ready for a celestial voyage.

When "Divenire" starts, I can see the hazy cirrus clouds there, up high, I can touch them, travel above them, pierce them. At the onset of "Primavera", instead, I distinctly see, drawn on the living room carpet, a series of flowering buds that explode in all their brilliance and intoxicating fragrance, in the triumph of nature. What can a title sometimes do, right? "Oltremare", instead, seems like a long, tormented odyssey to me, where even the ocean waves, lapping at the edges of the headphones, become our companions. "Andare" pleases me because, contrary to what it might suggest, it does not hurry. It waits for the listener to take the first step. It doesn't attack; it doesn’t flaunt with useless technical flourishes. It's there, and that's it. The same can be said for "Svanire", which shamelessly plagiarizes the most operatic Riz Ortolani and blows its residue into the air, vaporizing it into a shimmering rainbow of bows.

Ludovico Einaudi is, as is often -and fondly- said in this webzine, a "trombone". Still capable of mishandling his works, and to give us something which, perhaps, he would have liked to keep for himself. The choice is yours now.