Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Ludovico Einaudi

Good news and bad news on my progress on Le Onde. The good news is that I think I learned how to make it more musical. He (and those of you who play it so nicely) undergoes dynamic changes within phrases, in order to accentuate the sensation of wavelike movement. Starting in the very first measure, he crescendo's pretty significantly starting at the beginning of the measure, through the end of it. Then quiet again to begin the second measure, crescendo through it, and so forth. Conversely, in measure 5, the dynamics fall as the measure progresses. The D,C#,A progression gets progressively quiet as the measure progresses, then the pattern repeats. I am sure you all picked up on this a long time ago, but for me, it was a revelation.

Now the bad news: upon discovering this, I basically am in a position of completely relearning the piece. There is no way on God's green earth I will have it ready six weeks from now, for my piano teacher's annual student recital. Maybe good enough to play it for my children, but certainly not good enough to play it in public, in front of people I don't know.

Returning my attention, then, to IDF, which I always knew I could fall back on, should I need it.

Welcome to the "got my butt kicked by Le Onde club."

In all seriousness, I think your realization may be a blessing in disguise. "I due fiumi" is a much safer bet to play in a high stress context like a recital, and imo it's even prettier than "Le Onde." I'm sure your teacher and the other audience members will love it.

Oh boy! I just got an email announcing the May 12 release date of Einaudi's next album, Cloudland, as part of the new group he formed with Robert & Ronald Lippok called "Whitetree."

http://media.hmusa.com/listeningparty/whitetree/

If you click on that link it will bring up an ad along with a online player so you can hear snippets. It's a bit more experimental and ambient than his usual solo piano fare, but that won't stop me from buying it.

It looks like Whitetree will be performing live in New York (June 2) and L.A. (June 6), so any of you Einaudi fans lucky enough to live in or near those cities might want to look into it. I've already blown my budget for traveling to see Einaudi for the year, unfortunately.

I've had the album downloaded from iTunes for ages now as I had an iTunes gift card from Christmas. (Besides, when you've got an iPod singed by Einaudi it should have his stuff on it!)

I will say that I find the album quite listenable and it's a good break from his normal work. I think I'll give it another listen later on today since I've been working hard on the recital piece and can use some tracks to take a break in between practice sessions.

I just got "Echos" over the weekend.

Did anyone ever figure out the music for his experimental wanderings on the La Scala version of I Due Fiumi? Man, I like that part. Maybe my piano teacher and I can figure it out. She's good with stuff like that.

But I figured I would ask here first. Seems like this has come up before.

There was a thread about the La Scala version of I due fiumi on the Einaudi forum, in which nobody volunteered the transcription for the new coda, but I haven't checked it lately. I absolutely LOVE that version and am determined to play it one way or the other, but I would infinitely prefer it to be the lazy way (e.g., waiting for AW2PP's teacher to figure it out for us) vs. the hard way (e.g., me figuring it out for myself).

Uploading now to the iPod, Monica. Piano lessons are (checks clock) in 2 hours. We'll see how this goes.

My hope is that the patterns are simply excursions on themes developed elsewhere in the piece.

If you do manage to get just the notes for that section I could try to type them up into notation.

No luck this evening, we ran out of time. I'll try to work it out this week.

A thousand pardons if this video has already been posted here. (I tried searching for it and didn't find it, but I will be the first to admit that I have trouble working with this new search feature).

This is a video of Einaudi performing Divenire live. He evidently produced and posted the video himself, and it's very well done. I especially liked the still shots that were interspersed in the video. The video also does a good job of showing what a live performance by Einaudi is like--he merges sections of different pieces together into a medley.

Anyway, enjoy!

I purchased the single Le Onde and really enjoy playing it. It is quite surprising how in certain sections, the flow of notes suddenly fits perfectly into place. So now, I thought I would try I Due Fiumi. I have tried to locate a download online and through my local music store but can't find it. Is it only available in a book? I probably will buy the book in September but would like to have IDF now to work on over the summer. And....so I don't sound like an idiot, how do you pronounce his name?

Welcome to the Einaudi thread Norah.

His first name is pretty much how you would think it would sound. The last name sort of sounds like "Eye-now-di"

I didn't have much luck looking for a digital download of "I Due Fiumi" on many of the popular online music stores. I will say it is in the "Best of Ludovico Einaudi" book that is available from Amazon. It looks like it runs just over $25 Canadian. Quite a steal for 36 songs worth of sheet music. I got it right when I started learning piano as I wanted some encouragement.

I would rather invest in getting the whole book before you spend a bunch on single sheet scores that will end up in a book you might purchase anyway!

Plus, you might get done learning I Due Fiumi well before the summer is over! Then whatever would you do?

I agree with Anthony. If you've polished up Le Onde, I due fiumi will be a cakewalk. "The best of" book is a tremendous bargain. It contains the sheet music to all the pieces on his first three albums. And there's not a clunker in the bunch.

Thank you Anthony and Monica for your replies. Perhaps I should buy the book this summer. And....I hope I didn't give anyone the impression that I had mastered Le Onde. lol. Far from it!

I posted my recital clip (I Due Fiumi, played last Friday):

http://aw2pp.blogspot.com/2009/06/my-recital-piece.html

Oh, I'm so glad you posted this, AW2PP!! I had forgotten exactly when your recital was, but I was thinking the other day that it was right around now.

I know you said in your blog that you were shaking the whole time, but I can tell you that it sure isn't noticeable to the audience! You look very calm, and very focused! I thought you did a great job... only a minor bobble here or there, which people not familiar with the piece probably wouldn't have noticed.

What a huge rite of passage for you! Congratulations! And how nice that you were able to share the experience with Jillian. (Who looks like an angel in those photos on your blog, by the way. )

Congratulations! I'll have to admit that the first thing I did was laugh, because I always laugh when people are twice my height Then I saw your notice about the NBA. I'm more Jillian's size, myself. But both of you were great!

Cathy

That was very nice AW2PP. The more I hear this piece the more it grows on me.Thanks for sharing. :o)

Thanks, all!

I'm now in a "Now what?" phase. Over the last month, I have been spending most of my piano time working on IDF. I let Alfred's Book 2 slide, and I haven't been working on any fun pieces. I've tinkered a little with I Giorni, seems approachable enough.