Lavinia Meijer - Passaggio: Einaudi By Lavinia (2013)

Passaggio, Lavinia Meijer's first release on Sony, is an album of the crossover music of Ludovico Einaudi, an Italian composer and pianist who encouraged the Dutch harpist to record some of his most popular pieces. The playing on this 2014 album is highly polished and appealing, and Meijer demonstrates considerable powers of concentration and precision in performances of her harp transcriptions of Einaudi's highly repetitive keyboard music. Some will find Meijer's renditions emotionally communicative and mood enhancing, and most of the credit for their effectiveness belongs to her, because Einaudi's modal harmonies and conventional patterns tend toward a bland prettiness, or pretty blandness, that's all of a piece. Simple melodies and repeated arpeggiated chords have the instant attraction of minimalist music, and simplicity is often a virtue in the proper context. But because one piece blurs into the next, one might be left remembering only an impression of Einaudi's dreamlike and evanescent style, nothing more sharply defined. Sony's recording is clear and close-up, and Meijer has presence in a fairly resonant studio space.