Lucovico Einaudi Live in Berlin – Pondersosa CD 073 (2 CDs) (8/10/10) [Distr. by Harmonia mundi] *:
This will probably be one of the shortest reviews I’ve written. I see I raved about his previous album Divenire, but this time instead of solo piano Einaudi is joined by a string sextet, a percussionist and someone doing live electronics. And any of the good taste he displayed in the previous album seems to be gone. This strikes me as really boring New Age piano music that I could imitate with one hand.
I wasn’t going to review it, but felt I must, due to wanting to air a technical beef which is beginning to be shared by several other recent releases. Since it has become so much easier to achieve good quality when recording both classical and jazz performances live, and they usually sound more exciting, more labels and performers are doing that. The problem is that some of them are including lengthy sounds of audience applause at the end of tracks. I guess the intention is to show how much their fans loved them. Einaudi takes this practice to new heights. The penultimate track of Disc 2, for example, has 1:21 of applause, hoots and hollars at the end and the final track has 1:44! There’s only 35 minutes total on the whole disc!
TrackList: Svanire, Uno, Divenire, Rose, Ascolta, Oltremare, Andare, L’Origine, Mascosta, Primavera, Lanascit, Leonde, Eden Roc, Monday, Inun/Altravita
– John Sunier
