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Be Careful About Listening to Ludovico EINAUDI
©Renato Begnoni
by Wales
Imagine being on a piece of floating ice in the Arctic, viewing the expansive sky while a glacier in the distance breaks apart from melting. The scenery is stunning, but you're actually quite sad inside because all you can see is rapidly disappearing. What would you do?
Italian composer Ludovico EINAUDI worked with Greenpeace in a very expressive way in response to his grief about this tragedy. I know it sounds hard to believe, but it really has happened: On a platform made to resemble a piece of floating ice, EINAUDI played his piano solo Elegy for the Arctic, conveying many people's deep reflections and praise for this vast region of the planet.
It ignited much discussion upon being streamed in 2016 and has since gathered 21.87 million views. During the three-minute piece, besides the sound of the piano, you can hear the grieving calls of seabirds and the sound of the glacier disappearing. In this snow-white world, carbon emission-induced global warming is making apparent the urgent need for the Arctic's rescue.
The image of the pianist on ice has become deeply etched into people's hearts, but even before that, he was a world-renowned musician. His music is often described as minimalist: the same melody is repeated in a number of variations, creating a lingering sense of intimacy.
Though EINAUDI and another minimalist, Philip GLASS, are often associated, the former's music approaches the human heart more closely—there's no sense at all of that incomprehensible fragmentation that contemporary art can have. In fact, EINAUDI's music is like a ray of sunlight in winter, shining down on you as you walk through a forest, or like the sounds of cicadas and frogs on a dark night, giving you a sense of hearing the passage of time and the sound of your inner spirit singing.
I can confidently suggest that if you don't like classical music, you probably shouldn't listen to EINAUDI's music, because you are very likely to become plunged so deep into it as to be unable to find your way out. I'm not exaggerating. On the famous music website Classic FM, EINAUDI was voted second on the list of Top 10 Living Composers.
In addition, he is the most-streamed classical musician ever. Each year on online platforms around the world, his music is played about nine billion times, amazingly surpassing the counts for BACH, MOZART, and BEETHOVEN each!
You may have your doubts about that claim, but you probably don't realize just how many times you've heard his music at, say, coffee shops. His music goes perfectly with not only coffee; lots of people use it during meditation. If you don't meditate, just listening to his music for an afternoon will put you into a comfortable state both mentally and physically.
His simple yet touching music has attracted numerous film directors too. For instance, the inspirational French blockbuster The Intouchables, Chinese-born director Chloé ZHAO's Nomadland, and The Father, starring Anthony HOPKINS, use elegant incidental music by EINAUDI to perfectly capture the subtle inner emotions of the characters.
My favorite piece of his is the seven-volume album Seven Days Walking. Imagine walking in a mountain forest in winter, and even though the path is the same each day, there are slight differences. The album is a tribute to seven potential kinds of soul wandering. The mistiness of yesterday, the sun of today, and the snowfall of tomorrow are testaments to how life is a flowing feast.
Let me make it clearer: EINAUDI's music is the closest thing you can get to the spiritual expression of poetry. You don't have to be a poet to be able to experience how he makes ordinary scenes of life more meaningful through the speechless solo of the piano. He stops time for you and allows you to hear shadows and voids.
People looking forward to EINAUDI's first visit to Taiwan were disappointed in 2020 with the cancellation due to Covid-19, but now, Weiwuying has arranged to bring this living national treasure of Italy to Taiwan in April 2025!
Program
2025/4/5(Sat)19:30
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