Delicious 'Guardian Einaudi review

[LezLee]

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/aug/01/ludovico-einaudi-review-italian-composer-barbican-london?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

[oddoneout]

Einaudi’s music speaks fluent cliche

Seems a pretty useful summing up to me. I do think though that there are probably worse crimes committed in the name of music/popular entertainment and, given the choice, I would rather have Einaudi when on hold to customer non-service centres than the yowling pop or mangled looping Vivaldi. At least it allows my mind to disengage instead of getting increasingly wound up.

[LezLee]

It's strange how he gets to people. My sister likes some of his stuff but also loves Haydn string quartets, Schumann and Mahler.

[oddoneout]

It's strange how he gets to people. My sister likes some of his stuff but also loves Haydn string quartets, Schumann and Mahler.

The musical equivalent of appreciating good cuisine but indulging in a MaccyD on occasion?

[LezLee]

:)

[BBMmk2]

How did Einaudi get to get mentioned on these boards?!?!?

[Bryn]

How did Einaudi get to get mentioned on these boards?!?!?

There are 63 threads here which include mention of him.

[MrGongGong]

I'm not a fan
BUT a good friend who is a piano teacher (and Cage disciple: smiley:) tells me that for his students the music is playable and engaging and many move on to other things.
At least there are young people who are playing music by composers who are still alive!

[Richard Barrett]

I'm not a fan
BUT a good friend who is a piano teacher (and Cage disciple: smiley:) tells me that for his students the music is playable and engaging and many move on to other things.
At least there are young people who are playing music by composers who are still alive!

There is something in what you say. I came round to thinking the same about my daughter's school choir singing a piece by Karl Jenkins. Plus I didn't much like the snotty tone of the review, with its implication that everyone who doesn't agree with the author is a dimwit. This (cf. the Remainer contingent) seems to have become a dominant mode of expression these days. What is actually achieved by such a hatchet job? Why not be more encouraging to people, for example by suggesting things that listeners might come to prefer to Einaudi's comparatively shallow and clichéd music, like the piano music of Terry Riley or Howard Skempton...?

[ahinton]

There is something in what you say. I came round to thinking the same about my daughter's school choir singing a piece by Karl Jenkins. Plus I didn't much like the snotty tone of the review, with its implication that everyone who doesn't agree with the author is a dimwit. This (cf. the Remainer contingent) seems to have become a dominant mode of expression these days. What is actually achieved by such a hatchet job? Why not be more encouraging to people, for example by suggesting things that listeners might come to prefer to Einaudi's comparatively shallow and clichéd music, like the piano music of Terry Riley or Howard Skempton...?

I agree that it was overly snotty and that the author's point could perhaps have been made as well using somewhat fewer words but, to me, the issue at its heart seemed to be less that of Einaudi's work as the responses that it engenders in so many people who might seem to assume that it contains more substance and less vacuity than appears to be the case.

[doversoul1]

If I am pressed, I’ll admit that I have the same sort of reaction to LezLee about a one star review of someone/something that is very popular but I don’t approve of.

[Barbirollians]

Yes it is snotty in tone and he does not attempt to engage with why people might like this tinkly stuff before ripping it to shreds.

[Boilk]

If you can get through the pay wall, there's a less snotty review at The Times...

...as well as their April article on "the world’s most popular classical composer".

[ahinton]

There appears to be - or have been - at least one further response in this thread, the most recent being posted shortly before midnight, but for some reason it doesn't show; can a moderator throw light on this or might there be some technical problem at my end?

[BBMmk2]

I'm not a fan
BUT a good friend who is a piano teacher (and Cage disciple: smiley:) tells me that for his students the music is playable and engaging and many move on to other things.
At least there are young people who are playing music by composers who are still alive!

He should be banned!!!