Pianist Ludovico Einaudi’s Releases UK’s Fastest-Streaming Album

This album represents Italian pianist and composer Ludovico Einaudi’s first solo piano album in 20 years. Now taking the lead on the UK Classical Chart, it is his 11th Classical No. 1 record. 

Accompanying this release is Einaudi’s UK tour in March 2022, as well as his world tour which recently began in Italy. After his mostly sold-out spring tour dates across Europe, he will tour the U.S., Canada, and Mexico in June, according to Billboard.

For years, Einaudi wanted to create a solo piano album and the lockdowns during the pandemic gave him the chance to fully commit to the project. 

Embracing the isolation from his usually busy schedule, he put together 12 new solo piano tracks for “Underwater,” as reported in Udiscovermusic. “The title Underwater is a metaphor,” Einaudi explained. “It is an expression of a very fluid dimension, without interference from outside.”

The idea for the album sprang from his musical diary reflecting his experiences in nature while going for long walks. He ended up recording 500 pieces of music, from which he selected the final 12 for the album — a process he felt was very difficult.

On creating the project, Einaudi wrote on his Facebook page: “I felt a sense of freedom to let the music flow in a different way. I didn’t have a filter between me and what came out of the piano, it felt very pure.”

“I had never done something completely without filter, without a mind filter in a way,” Einaudi told Vanity Fair. “[With] this new music I started to feel that there was something new for me that I enjoyed in this music that I’ve done, that I wanted to keep and share with the world. This was the reason for this album.

“And at the end, the idea of Underwater is that the water describes the fact that I was in a different dimension, as everyone may be,” he continued. “I was in a parallel world that was not the life that I lived before. It was a world where there was a beautiful silence around me…I was experiencing that the entire world was in that dimension. A beautiful inner peace…so with that beautiful peace inside, my sound started to be different.”

This album follows a new worldwide contract signed with Decca Records in 2019, where Einaudi released seven albums in seven months titled “Seven Days Walking.” The latter stands as the most ambitious project of his 30-year career.

“Underwater” performed live from Einaudi’s home can be watched below.

LUDOVICO EINAUDI | UNDERWATER | 2022

Born in Turin, Italy, Einaudi trained as a classical composer and pianist at the Milan Conservatorio, studying with renowned composer Luciano Berio. A proponent of different music genres including African, folk, and rock music, Einaudi has recorded 16 studio albums and regularly tops the classical charts globally, becoming the highest-streamed classical artist of all time.