If the charts are any indicator, it's possible that tastes may be changing in the UK. Italian composer and classical pianist Ludovico Einaudi's 2015 album Elements is turning heads as the first classical-ish album to reach the top 15 in the country. Known for scoring the Doctor Zhivago miniseries, classical pianist Ludovico Einaudi tops charts by regularly blending his classical training with either pop stylings or cinematic sensibilities. Surely, if chart-topping in the U.K. is the goal, those sensibilities are important to combat what would appear to be a steady aversion to classical music since 1992, when according to the Telegraph, Henryk Gorecki's Symphony of Sorrowful Songs peaked at number 6. While perhaps less confrontational than Gorecki's work, Einaudi's 2015 album, Elements, is still nothing to belittle.
Ludovico Einaudi's Elements exhibits a dramatic fusion of minimalism with patterns that trend all across modern cinema. Perhaps at times it can smack of the ubiquitous high-octane "action-scaping" found prominently in the scores of Hans Zimmer, but Einaudi's minimalist leanings seem to force a more tempered approach. At its most delicate, Elements manages to capture the tragic aftertaste of a Clint Mansell piece without resorting to his signature sweeping melodies. Instead, owing to his strengths as a classical pianist, Ludovico Einaudi builds tension with gradually overlapping motifs, textures, and harsh breaks (many of them swirling around typical pop 4-chord progressions). It is precisely because Einaudi errs so much on the side of minimalism and pop that it might be more appropriate to label his music as a product of the New Age movement, which --- although seemingly less ambitious than broader classical structures --- concentrates more on relaxation, cohesion, elements of nature and an air of optimism. Especially considering its own title, Einaudi's Elements seems completely aware of its goal, of its eclecticism, and indeed, what Einaudi may be saving for another day.
Because of its simplicity, perhaps it's no small wonder that Elements has made its way into the mainstream. Einaudi tops charts by achieving exactly what he set out to achieve, nothing more and nothing less... and there's something endearing about that. That the charts rarely reflect a broader interest in classical foundation could be owed to our own inability to reconcile feelings and impressions across diverse platforms, especially when the visual element is lacking. Elements does, however, send a message that cinema may have more to do with how music is spread in the modern day. In listening, at times it almost seems impossible to separate the work from its cinematic contemporaries. Mass preparedness for slow-paced, rumanitive works with classical orchestration may well have been re-implanted over the last several decades of cinema and television scores, but only now, it seems, are the charts finally reflecting their impact.
