Essential Einaudi: Islands | 19 Pieces for Solo Piano | Contemporary Classical Sheet Music by Ludovico Einaudi | Emotional Piano Solos from Le Onde, I ... "Best of" Album, Transcribed for Solo Piano

If you love Einaudi's music and you can play piano, then this is for you. I've only just started playing the piano properly and sight reading and these songs are not too difficult to play. The comments that this music is Grade 5 I'm not sure. A lot of Einaudi's music, whilst beautiful sounding, is quite simple and constructed of chords and broken chords so if you're a novice pianist I wouldn't let these comments put you off. You don't necessarily need to be a high grade yourself to play this music, some people are able to pick up this style of playing quite quickly. Nefeli, for example, is one of my all time favourite pieces and it's very simple and easy to learn, whereas I Giorni is a bit meatier and includes a bit more technical skill, double notes and tenths (Einaudi's handspan must be incredible) which is the reason it would technically be graded at a higher level. In terms of key signature, there are a few pieces in C Major, but he loves A Major so be sure to know your keys. More than anything, what is required to play this music is good technical skill and strong fingers, as there is generally a lot of repetition of chords in the left hand. One thing to note - This sheet music doesn't contain all of the music on the 'Islands' album, which one might assume. Be careful of this when buying, initially I bought this because I loved 'Passagio' but it isn't included. Although, there are a lot of other beautiful songs to keep you occupied :) And I completely agree with everyone else about the binding. The pages keep closing when I play Nefeli, as it's in the middle of the book. I'm one of those people who likes to keep the spines of their book in perfect condition, which isn't an option here :)

Einaudi's music is truly stunning! This whole album is beautiful. As a 22 year old, who's been playing the piano since the age of 6, this book has made a nice change to the pop music I usually play. Mastered both 'I Gorni' and 'Ancora' both of which were pretty easy to learn, and feel beautiful to play. This book is great for any pianist who wants to show off their skills and capture an audience. I'd say it is of grade 5 level (with a few quite difficult to reach chords if you have small hands like me.) Einaudi is a genius. I love his music. Listen, practise, learn, perform!!!!

Modern playable contempory music probably grade 5-6ish. Beautiful and relaxing chord sequences - my favourite is Primavera (have since heard it feature on the rugby on BBC). Wanted some modern music which wasn't classically dischordant or cheesily pop and this fits the bill perfectly. Pieces are almost meditatively repetitave and rely heavily on epxression but thats part of the fun. Check u tube out all the pieces are on there performed by Ludovico. The book is really good value too with all the pieces being excellent. It will be a challenge to find more music i like just as much now.

This music book is exemplary it's a great relaxing book I recommend it to teach the brain musical notes it's actually helping my own mental health thankyou all very kindly

I have no issue with the music, but when are the publishers going to get real about the playability of such productions? From a commercial point of view, it looks good, visually and musically, and represents good value, but practically speaking it is almost impossible to keep the pages flat to enable one to actually play the pieces. I own dozens of similar publications, all impossible to play in their original format, and every one I have taken to a 'Print Services' company and paid £4-5 extra to have the spine removed and replaced by a a spiral (either wire or plastic). When I saw this for sale I anticipated a similar action would be required. However, things went wrong on this occasion. Once the spine was cut off, the remaining space at the side of the pages was insufficient to take a spiral without losing the last few notes on each line. Consequently, I now own a botched up copy. The purpose of my ranting is to highlight the point that, if publishers continue to produce such products, as it must be cheaper to produce and easier to distribute and store, please allow sufficient white paper space to allow a spiral spine to be added if required by the customer. If the type face size of the music had been reduced by only 1-2% this would have made the all the difference.

Wonderful... well received

Love this book - verying levels of difficulty but all the arrangements are lovely to play for an intermediate player. Page turn locations seem well thought out. As others have said, you have to wrestle with the spine of the book to make it stay open properly, but other than that it's great.

Good

エイナウディの作品は聴いて・演奏して心地良いものが多いです。演奏上難しい要素も少ないので、幅広い方におすすめできます。

Achat fait pour ma fille qui veut déchiffrer et jouer ces morceaux. Un beau recueil au format agréable et un cadeau dont je suis sûr qu'il fera plaisir.

I enjoyed the gentle tone of these pieces. They vary in difficulty but I was able to sight read most with Grade IX piano. A little repetitious at times but very impressive sounding. I love this book.

The book of Enaudi’s music was delivered in a matter of about ten days. It has many pieces in clear easy-to read print. I am only playing the first one, but look forward to some of the rest. The piece Sunrise was highly recommended to me but it wasn’t in this book. That doesn’t matter though, as they are all new to me.

I am a huge Ludovico Einaudi fan. As a piano student, I first heard Divenire, and was hooked. I have recently been playing his music as a huge playlist for hours on end during study time and just regular reading time as it is so relaxing, so I begin searching for the sheet music, being a piano student, and then I found this book, which reflects the very best of Einaudi. It has all the main songs in it, or his most popular, such as Divenire, I Giorni, The earth Prelude, Nuvole Bianche, Primavera, and Ancora. It has 19 songs in all, and If you wish to preview how they will sound, go to youtube and search Einaudi Islands and click on one of the 1hr+ videos to listen to the Playlist of all the songs included as performed by Einaudi. It is exquisite. I ordered this book, and almost canceled my order because it was on backorder and I felt I was buying the book for just two or three songs. The day I went to cancel, It said it had shipped, which was such a blessing because I cannot imagine my piano library without this book. This book seems to be written NOTE for NOTE as the true versions are. So the songs sound exactly like he plays it, not a simplified version. It is perfect for an intermediate to Advanced pianist. These are challenging songs, with the hardest seeming to have four flats. There are about five or so in key of C, which will be perfect for more intermediate players. Evenstill, while some pieces are challenging, even for me and I have 11 years of lessons under my belt, this book has made me accelerate my performance. The area in piano that I lack the most in has always been adding notes in the left hand. I would play perhaps four at the most per measure and would never play the left hand exactly like it was written. I got to the point I would play three notes and just roll em back and fourth for the measure, then move to the next three and so on instead of scaling the entire bass part of the keyboard. After playing from this book for only about four hours, I have found myself naturally beginning to scale the entire bass part of the keyboard and adding bass notes subconsciously, the only part of piano playing that I lacked. It has taught me rhythm, without me realizing it better than any lesson book ever has. I have always been envious of people who can scale the entire keyboard effortlessly, and I can say that solely because of this book, I am finally reaching the skill level I always wanted. Bottom line: If you like Einaudi and have a decent background in piano, buy it. This is not a book for beginners, but is perfect for intermediates looking for a challenge, or Advanced looking to polish their skill set, or just lovers of Einaudi. It ranges from C to 4 flats, with everything in between, but even the C ones can be a little intensive. I haven't played but half of these songs, and already can say that I mastered quite a few. Its is worth every penny because it will make you grow as a pianist faster than you ever thought possible, and help you polish those little elements that you have trouble on, whether it is like me and is left hand rhythm, or perhaps dynamics. It is perfect.