Pianist and composer Ludovico Einaudi talks taste – and toast
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
My personal style signifiers are fedoras, which I buy from Optimo in Chicago. I have a collection of hats from around the world, but the fedora is the best for me. I like the architecture of how it fits on my head, so I have this shape in different colours – green, dark blue and a black one for when I’m wearing a suit while performing. Hats are a passion that started in the past 10 years.
The last thing I bought and loved was an abstract painting by the German artist Christiane Löhr, which I have in my bedroom. She paints in oil pastels, and it looks almost like the skeleton of a tree in black against a white background. You can see her fingerprints in it. I discovered it at the annual Artissima art fair in my home city of Turin, where I was born. Every year I find something interesting there.
The place that means a lot to me is Langhe – meaning “the waves of the land” – in Piedmont, where they make Barolo wine. I have a house there that used to be my family home, and a studio where I record. Everything is familiar and I know all the scents: it’s a place that helps my concentration. When you travel to the Alps you’re overwhelmed by the beauty, but in Langhe it’s softer. It helps me to meditate, concentrate and be creative.
And the best souvenir I’ve brought home is a very beautiful kaftan from Kazakhstan, a gift from the organisers of concerts I performed in Almaty and Astana in 2023. It’s decorated in the style of traditional Kazakh dress, which has a lot of embroidery and multicoloured patterns.
Being on the road is an adventure of discovery – I’ve recently done a tour through Taiwan, China, Japan and Korea. It’s always interesting because you experience a different world. I love Europe, but when I’m on tour there I’m less surprised by the world around me. I always try to dive into something challenging and interesting – in Hong Kong I went to the flower markets to search for plants I couldn’t get back home; in Tokyo I love to go to photography shops.
My biggest pet peeve in a hotel is noise. If there’s work being done on another floor while I’m trying to rest, that’s the only time I’ll call reception to ask, “How long is this going on for?” When I’m travelling, I’m performing, so I need to be in perfect shape.
And my favourite hotel is the Okura in Tokyo. It became famous because one of the Sean Connery Bond films was shot there. It has a beautiful lobby with wonderful furniture – I know they did some restoration recently, so I don’t know if it’s just as it was. I hope it is.
The best book I’ve read in the past year is the journal of American naturalist Henry David Thoreau, which is always on my bedside table. He was one of the first to see that society was concentrating too much on the city, and people were losing contact with the natural environment. It’s a beautiful book, full of poetry; you can keep it next to your bed and read a page every day.
My style icon is Mick Jagger. His style is very different to mine, but sometimes you get tips from people even if you’re not copying them. And I always admired the elegance of David Lynch.
The best gift I’ve given recently is a rug embroidered with the cover art for my album Elements. I was on tour in Turkey with my manager and he found a place that can make rugs with any design you show them. I had two made: I kept the first and gave the second to my friend, an architect who has offered me a lot of advice on interior design.
And the best gift I’ve received is a beautiful toaster by Milantoast from the crew and band I was touring with in Munich. It’s very heavy and my family asked why we should have this enormous thing when we had a toaster already – but there’s a huge difference in the quality of the crust. It makes the best toast you’ve ever had in your life.
I have a collection of analogue cameras. My father had a passion for them – when I was a teenager I used to take photos with his Rolleiflex and I spent some time in the studio of Ugo Mulas, who was a great photographer of the 1960s and ’70s. When my music took over, I forgot about photography for a bit, but then I got a digital camera and started collecting analogues again. I have more than 40 now. I love my Leica and I have a Nikon FM3A rangefinder, plus another Rolleiflex. I also have a few Contax point-and-shoots, which I love.
When I need to feel inspired, I look at the details of nature – trees and the movements of leaves. It’s very interesting to try to transcribe nature into music. You look at the profile of a mountain and it can be transcribed into a melodic shape – you start at the lowest part and it climbs to a peak then goes back down again. Openness and dialogue between disciplines is the best way to keep your creativity alive; you can search for new adventures rather than just staying in your own remit. Sometimes when I arrive somewhere new, I’ll sit at the piano and something great happens and suddenly I have a new piece of music. But if I have to work deeply, I need to be at home in my studio.
A way to make me laugh is to imitate me – my family copy the way I move, how I cook, how I eat. We laugh about it all the time.
In my fridge you’ll always find Dijon mustard, olives, parmesan and vegetables. The mustard and cheese are for making toast. I also always have olive oil but I don’t keep it in the fridge. When I’m on tour, I’ll experiment with the food that belongs to the places I go. Understanding food is an important way to understand the culture you’re in. I try not to snack!
I believe in life after death. I don’t like the idea that everything will be lost. Something lingers in the places where people you knew lived. There was a jay that came to visit my mother every day in the last year of her life – it still comes back now. I think it’s a familiar energy that is coming back. I like the idea of transmigration from Indian and Asian cultures – the idea that your body can become something else.
An indulgence I would never forgo is shopping. Buying a T-shirt from Sunspel, or camera rolls for my camera. It feels almost like a perversion.
The last item of clothing I added to my wardrobe is a cashmere overshirt by Drumohr in a rich forest green. I usually wear a lot of very dark fits but this is a new colour. The palette is lighter.
An object I’d never part with is my ring, which I’ve had for about 50 years; it’s become part of my body. It was sold to me by an artisan in Bonassola, Liguria. It’s a very simple thing but I really love it. It’s the first thing I put on in the morning.
In my suitcase you’ll always find two cameras – one digital, one analogue. I used to travel with more, but two is enough. I also have my iPad, where I work and write things, plus a little sketchbook for notes and a wooden Faber-Castell mechanical pencil. I’ll take probiotics and vitamins, maybe some magnesium, but that depends on my mood.
On my Spotify “made For You” playlist you’ll find a lot of different styles of music. Recently I discovered “Deadly Valentine” by Charlotte Gainsbourg, which was produced by the French electronic musician SebastiAn. Sometimes I just like the energy of a song. I try not to be technical about the way I relate to music; I still try to hear it the way I did when I was eight. It’s the same when I’m composing: I need to find the emotional movement in what I do. Then it’s about layering ideas and looking at what I’m doing from different perspectives. The first input has to be spontaneous.
The piece of work that changed everything for me is the discography of The Beatles. Compared to the Stones, where most of the time you can feel only one sound, they had all sorts of influences – baroque, avant-garde, vaudeville, country American. I loved their exploration of different worlds of music. It’s a kaleidoscope of style, but always with their soul. Forcing me to choose just one song is like a cut to the heart – I can’t!
My favourite composer is Vivaldi – he doesn’t come to the same peaks as Bach but his music has this particular energy. There’s a spiritual element but also a very physical way in which he uses the instruments. You can feel the blood moving in it.
My grooming staples are Aesop products. I love the whole range. I’m fascinated by the design and the look – and I love the fact that every shop is different.
My favourite room in my house in Turin is the kitchen. I love to spend time there after I’ve been working with music. It’s very meditative for me to prepare food for my family. My best dish is a white risotto with local leeks that are very small and flavourful.
My wellbeing guru is my Pilates teacher Augusto Franconi at The Art of Pilates in Milan. I’ve been practising it for 15 years and it’s become a weekly routine.
When I want to be transported somewhere else, I listen to the radio. There’s something beautiful in it because you don’t know what’s coming up. I prefer that feeling to finding specific things to listen to.
My favourite building is in Longos, a fishing village on the Greek island of Paxos. Last year I was there at a café and sat for two hours listening to the locals talking, having a coffee. The cats came to see what the fishermen were bringing in, and life was just perfect.
The best bit of advice I ever received was to be open and curious about everything from my maestro, the composer Luciano Berio. I worked with him for several years in my 20s. We were in the countryside once looking at the murmurations of birds, and he told me to transcribe the movement into a piece for strings. Looking at the world that way, you can see anything and say, “I can make a piece of music from this.” Ludovico Einaudi is at the Royal Albert Hall, London, from 29 June to 4 July
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