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Ludovico Einaudi - Time Lapse Tour 2014. Next shows:

11 July - Spain - Barcellona, Amfiteatre Grec
12 July - Spain - Madrid, Teatro Circo Prince
13 July - Spain - Madrid, Teatro Circo Prince
15 July - Germany - Paderborn - Schlosspark
16 July - Germany - Cologne - Tanzbrunner
17 July - Belgium - Gent Jazz Festival
18 July - Germany - Mainz - Zitadelle
19 July - Denmark - Copenaghen - DR Concerthuset
20 July - Netherlands - Amsterdam, Concertgebouw
21 July - Netherlands, Amsterdam, Concertgebouw
28 July - Italia, Arena di Verona

Lucky Europe!! And gosh Mr E. is a busy man at the moment

Just got back from out of town--sorry for the delay. Your "Monday" sounds beautiful, Jessie. I actually haven't played it before... those polyrhythms scare me, so I tend to avoid those pieces of his that rely so heavily on them!

Mr. E is busy indeed. And I can't wait until the 28th. Hubby and I decided to stay with our Verona tickets and take the risk of a rain-out rather than go to Amsterdam. We'll be heading for Venice on the 23rd, then Florence for a couple of days, and then the grand finale of Verona and the concert. Leaving the kids at home, which makes it our first husband/wife only vacation since they were born 18 years ago.

C'mon Monica - you've had plenty of time to get your feet back on the ground and we're dying to know how the concert went!

Sorry, Marie! We got back from Italy late July 29th, caught our breath for two days, then went to Chicago for 8 days for a big business trip. Then it was getting my son ready for the start of school and doing the recital, wanting to take sufficient time to do this write-up justice, etc. etc.

In other words, lots of excuses! Sorry for the delay.

The concert was simply wonderful. As you all know, I was terrified that we would go to the great expense of this trip only to arrive and have the concert rained out. Hubby Jonathan assured me that we should simply consider it to be a trip to Italy to celebrate our anniversary, and if we got to see Einaudi, that would just be the frosting on the cake. But I was still quite worried, so I was delighted when two days before the concert there was a post on Facebook saying that the show would go on, rain or shine.

I'll skip details of Venice and Florence, both of which were fabulous. We arrived in Verona the day of the concert. The city is dominated by the Verona Arena, where the concert was going to be held. It is an ancient Roman amphitheater that is used now for various opera performances and other concerts. Here's a shot of me outside the arena:



It's in the center of town, in a plaza lined by numerous restaurants and a park. We had lunch, then went to tour an old castle that housed an art museum. Walking back to the hotel I was startled to hear the unmistakable sounds of Einaudi emanating from the amphitheater. For a brief second I thought I had gotten the starting time wrong! But then I realized it was just the sound check. Phew!

Although it was sunny and quite hot most of the day, the forecast continued to call for thunderstorms that evening. So Jonathan and I prepared ourselves by buying official Verona Arena souvenir ponchos. This is me holding the poncho under the banner advertising the concert:



Now that I had the rain thing under control, the only remaining worry I had was some nagging doubts about the tickets, as I had bought them online from an Italian ticket venue, laboriously copying and pasting each part of the website into Google Translate. And, of course, the tickets were printed in Italian. So when we checked into the hotel, I showed them to the desk clerk and asked her to translate, just to make sure there wasn't any remaining step we had to do to get inside the concert. She assured me that we were good to go and commented that we had excellent seats. Which we did indeed, row five, slightly left of center, as you can see by this pic, which also shows the tent protecting the piano from any potential rain. That's hubby Jon in the lower right, looking toward the camera.



We got to the concert half an hour early, a time I spent eagerly buying concert memorabilia: A poster of the event, a canvas bag with Einaudi's photo on it, a "Nightbook" t-shirt, a "Time Lapse" booklet, etc. etc.

The arena kept filling up. It seats around 25,000 people, and I'm pretty sure this concert was a sell-out. Here's a shot taken about 15 minutes before the start of the concert to give you an idea of the crowd. It certainly makes it clear that Einaudi is a much-revered and well-known musician in his home country.



Finally, the moment we had been waiting for arrived, and the musicians walked on stage to thunderous applause. Einaudi sat down at the piano and began the haunting intro to "Waterways," one of my favorite pieces from the "In a Time Lapse" album. Roughly 30 seconds later, the threatening clouds that had been gathering the past hour opened up and a downpour commenced. The next five minutes were marred by the sounds of 25,000 people putting on rain ponchos and/or opening umbrellas. Everybody was trying to be quiet, of course, but you can't mask the sounds of 25,000 crinkling ponchos.

Jonathan and I disagree on how long the rain lasted (I thought only about 25 minutes, he thought nearly an hour), but rain it did for some time. I had to crane my neck sideways to glimpse the stage through the umbrellas in front of me, but the music as always was captivating. And I should mention that this was no gentle summer rain but a full blown thunderstorm. The lightning and thunder actually added to the atmosphere, as during that time Einaudi was playing several tracks from "Nightbook," which have a somewhat edgy, intense tone matching well the show Mother Nature was giving us.

Finally, though, the rain let up (for the most part). Einaudi and his ensemble played for 2 1/2 hours, much longer than any of his concerts I have seen in the past (including the Time Lapse show I saw in Chicago). I don't know if that's because of the venue, the large crowd, or making up for the rain. Or, likely, it may have had something to do with the fact that the concert was being professionally videotaped, with several dollies or booms (? videocamera-holding things that move up and down and all around) moving about throughout the performance. I sure hope they release a DVD of the show, but I'm thinking that the ambient noise caused by the rain probably upset those plans.

I wish I could tell you a setlist for the show, but I was too mesmerized by the music to try to take notes. But he played most of my favorites, with a heavy emphasis on his two most recent albums: Waterways, Time Lapse, Life, Experience (which was FANTASTIC live!), Underwood, Newton's Cradle (ditto!), Nightbook, Eros, Berlin Song, Tu Sei, Divenire, Andare, etc. etc. I know I'm missing a lot and/or confusing some.

About halfway through "Divenire," although the rain had stopped by then, a gust of wind somehow picked up a section of the large awning that had protected the stage and dumped gallons of water on the stage, right next to the piano, splashing both Einaudi himself and the top half of the keyboard. He stopped for a second, looking at the water in disbelief, while the audience roared in surprise and laughter. He then finished the phrase he was on, wiped a considerable amount of water off the keys with a flourish, and then returned to playing.

I wasn't trying to record the concert (my Zoom's not waterproof!), but I found a clip on YouTube that shows Divenire and the waterfall event (which starts at about the 5:15 mark):

[video:youtube]6fWDp6eUftI[/video]

After about 2 hours of amazing music, including some spectacular tambourine work, Einaudi and his ensemble left the stage to a standing ovation. The crowd hooted and whooped and clapped our little hearts out for what had to have been a solid ten minutes straight... but still no encore! Just when I was starting to believe that they were going to skip the encore given the rain, wet stage, and waterlogged piano, we heard the gentle intro notes to "Nuvole Bianche" off to the right of the stage, where the crew had hastily set up an upright piano for Einaudi to play a few solo pieces while they wiped off the main stage and instruments.

After the delightful interlude of Einaudi playing solos on an upright (amazingly good sound despite the upright, which only proves further that it's the musician, and not the instrument, that accounts for 95% of the variance in sound), he and the ensemble returned to the stage for another encore set. The finale was an extended arrangement of "Eden Roc," and right at the end six drummers dressed in traditional Italian Renaissance garb appeared on the stage playing drums. It was amazing.



Einaudi then introduced all the musicians in his ensemble, who were greeted with standing ovations and cheers (especially the tambourine dude) and then launched into an edgy final finale piece that includes a whole lot of rhythm and snippets from various "Nightbook" pieces. Here's a pretty good video somebody took of this:

[video:youtube]OFOeuFT5Zvw[/video]

And then it was over... truly a marvelous experience. While I had seen a very similar version of the show in Chicago, this one was even more special given its greater length, the energy of the huge crowd, and the beauty of the Verona Arena amphitheater. Would I have preferred that it didn't rain on us, and would I have preferred not to hear the crinkle crinkle of rain ponchos throughout the show? Sure. But even with the rain it was a special night, and one that I am so grateful I was able to share with my husband... who is rapidly becoming just as much of an Einaudi fan as I am. The trip definitely counts as one of my peak life experiences.

Great report thanks for sharing

Last time I got married (lol there has been a few) black clouds suddenly appeared as we were exchanging vows in a beach ceremony. After the ceremony just standing around talking to friends it started to bucket down and stayed torrential for the rest of the day. We will never forget that day (since we still had to take tables and chairs back to the car) but it makes for good memories and some good photos. We often say it would not be the same without that storm.

Oh, Monica, THANK YOU! I never expected a fabulous, detailed, inspiring report like that! I won't be the only one bookmarking this page, and revisiting it over and over again to savour the whole wonderful experience. It's the next best thing to actually being there - and without the deluge.

Thanks for the report Monica, sounds truly amazing!

Long time for no updates to this thread... but I am happy to report a very important update indeed: Einaudi has announced that he should be releasing a new album in 2015!!

I have been so preoccupied with family issues that my practicing is very very slow these days. I am still polishing up "Tracce" and intend to record it for the November recital. How is everybody else's Einaudi practice going?

Great news, Monica - 2015 will be exciting!

I've just taken on a new challenge with my Einaudi practice; last week I scanned 16 favourites into my new iPad, as outlined in another recent post. I'm learning to cope with a smaller format score and double the number of page turns. The bonuses are that these turns are faster (provided you don't tap twice) and quieter than turning pages of paper - AND I don't need a wheelbarrow to take all of my much-loved albums with me when I'm away from my piano.

Thanks for sharing, Monica!
Another album means another great source of great music to play

Practice time is limited for me too between work and family, and having taken on 2 pieces for the Schumann recital I'm finding that's taking up a lot of my practice time.
That said, I am also hoping to submit an Einaudi piece for the ABF recital in November - Nefeli. I have recorded it a couple of times already but there are still two or three places where things sometimes slip up. I've yet to record to the end without something going a bit askew somewhere along the way!

Hallo I'm a new member of this Piano forums Friends, I need your help. I'm searching the notes of this different version of "nightbook", but I haven't found yet...Please,give me some link or websites, where I will be able to find the notes of this version.

Listen this...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lYeRdtBoVw

Welcome to the forum, tamta.

I don't think the sheet music for this version exists. It's technically "Pise sans titre" which I understand means "Untitled Track 13"; it was included as a bonus to the Nightbook CD and is a beautiful, slower solo piano version of the title track. I listened to it while examining the sheet music for "Nightbook" contained in the Nightbook music collection, and it's not the same. You may have to wait for some brave soul to transcribe it... or tackle the transcription yourself. The piano solo transcription in the Nightbook collection would be a good start; you'd just have to work out the differences.

Welcome to PW, tamta! Very nice to know another Einaudi admirer!

Monica, that's true. Ludovico has some great "uncovered" moments which are not written to paper (unfortunately...).
And this include pieces and sessions inside pieces. I've a good collection of Einauidi books and it's not difficult to find differences between the recorded piece and the sheet music.
I've some experiences trying to transpose some of his unwritten sessions and it's a really lovely job - not easy, but very rewarding.

tamta, maybe you can tell us your experience as a piano player.

I'm deleriously excited: Mr E. is coming to Auckland, NZ in Feb 2015!!! Just got my tickets, I can't wait

Great Jessiebear!
Don't miss it. It's an amazing show

I've not posted to PW for quite some time (not regarding a few PM's here and there) but I would like to post saying that Einaudi's Chicago concert was absolutely phenomenal. It was also nice to meet MonicaK again (for the 3rd time) as well as her husband and daughter.

This show was much more enjoyable than the last one where his ensemble got stuck and wasn't able to make the show. At least Mr. Einaudi was on an earlier flight and we got a somewhat shorter solo concert last year.

All worries were removed upon entering the theater and seeing more than just a piano in center stage.

Concert was highly enjoyable, the crowd was energetic and appreciative with quite a bit more applause than during the solo concert last time.

I think the show lasted just over or around 2 hours and was well with the short trip back to my home city, Chicago.

I'm so glad I had the chance to catch the ensemble version of the In a Time Lapse tour as I feel that it was much better than Nightbook. I do wish I could have seen an ensemble version of a Divenere concert live but at least that one has DVD versions.

Pretty good overall for a 4th Einaudi concert experience (San Francisco, Milwaukee, Chicago x 2)

Who knows, maybe I'll get back to making recordings and posting to the recital and youtube one of these days!

Take care!

AnthonyB! How are you?!? I think about you every once in awhile. YES - play Einaudi for recitals! Your interpretations were great.

Cold enough this week for you ? I remember those days - "The high today will be two below. . ."

Cathy