steinway & Sons Spirio, the world’s finest high resolution player piano, presents international sensation Steinway Artist Ludovico Einaudi. An Italian pianist and composer with a classical background, Einaudi has created his own musical language that has the power to touch all listeners. During his recent North American tour, he visited Steinway & Sons' Spirio studio in New York to record some of his most famous compositions — just for spirio owners. Our spirio sync video this month features Einaudi performing his popular “I Giorni” (The Days).

steinway & Sons Spirio, the world’s finest high resolution player piano, presents international sensation Steinway Artist Ludovico Einaudi. An Italian pianist and composer with a classical background, Einaudi has created his own musical language that has the power to touch all listeners. During his recent North American tour, he visited Steinway & Sons' Spirio studio in New York to record some of his most famous compositions — just for spirio owners. Our spirio sync video this month features Einaudi performing his popular “I Giorni” (The Days).

steinway & Sons Spirio, the world’s finest high resolution player piano, presents international sensation Steinway Artist Ludovico Einaudi. An Italian pianist and composer with a classical background, Einaudi has created his own musical language that has the power to touch all listeners. During his recent North American tour, he visited Steinway & Sons' Spirio studio in New York to record some of his most famous compositions — just for spirio owners. Our spirio sync video this month features Einaudi performing his popular “I Giorni” (The Days).

I spoke to Joel about his love for Beethoven and classical music and he talked about the classical nature of his own songs, namely “Uptown Girl” and “The Longest Time.” You’ve done classical arrangements of both for Spirio, Steinway’s player piano. 

On those two songs the melodies and chordal structures are very classical. About twenty years ago, he asked me to create a classical piano version of “For the Longest Time.” So I sat down and started messing with it, and sure enough, it really lent itself perfectly to that genre. It works great in the format of a piano sonata. Then recently he asked me to try another piece with a simpler approach, and that’s when I came up with the “Uptown Girl Sonatina.” 

Obviously, when Billy came up with these melodies he ended up turning them into fantastic pop songs. But the structure of the melodies was always classical, even though the world never heard it that way. So it’s kind of a cool chance for the world to hear a different approach to those same melodies that everybody knows and loves.

A piano arrangement of a Billy Joel song faces a challenge because you have to realize both the piano part and the vocals. So how do you prioritize what gets included under ten fingers?

For the classical arrangments I don’t really consider the piano part that’s on the record. I start with just the vocal melody and the chordal structure. Then I take it apart and put it back together again in the style of a classical piano piece.  

For the non-classical piano arrangements I focus on capturing the original character of the song. First I transcribe his exact piano parts and vocal melodies, then I find musical ways to combine them into a playable piano part that stays true to the original recording.

During a Madison Square Garden performance with the band, Billy Joel is playing piano and you’re playing keyboard. How exactly do you back up a pianist as a keyboardist? What role do you serve?

Well, there are a lot of different parts that I cover. The piano part is a constant through most of the records, and obviously he plays that. But there are synth parts, organ parts, horn parts, string lines, sound effects, and all different kinds of synth colors that create textures to support what he’s doing. So sometimes what I’m doing is related to the piano, but sometimes it’s not. 

There are a few songs where we play double piano. On “Don’t Ask Me Why” we both play pianos and we play the interlude part together. On songs like “You May Be Right” and “My Life,” he’ll be playing acoustic piano and I’ll be playing an electric piano, like a Rhodes or something like that. On “Uptown Girl” he stands up to sing and I play the piano parts. So my role varies from song to song to cover whatever’s needed. 

As a side note, on his Greatest Hits Volume III album, there was a bonus track called “Hey Girl.” When we got into the studio to record it, much to my surprise, he says to me: “I’m just gonna sing today. You play piano.” So we cut the track that way and I played piano. I figured when I went home he was going to replace it, but he didn’t. He really liked what I did so he kept it. So I became one of only three piano players to ever play piano on a Billy Joel record besides him: Richard Tee, Ray Charles and myself. 

That’s good company.

Yes, it’s an honor to be included on a short list of such great pianists. And it reminds me of the importance of spontaneity and always allowing room for a spontaneous performance. The same thing applies to when we are rehearsing for a show and I’m helping to put arrangements together. I’m very careful to leave the opportunity for spontaneity to happen naturally, because spontaneity is a big part of what Billy does. 

I’m sure you saw that from watching the show. We never want to over-prepare. We want to keep that edge all the time. Billy loves that spontaneity and wants it to always be there. So my job also is to make sure that it doesn’t become too fine-tuned of a machine, that there still remains that rock ‘n’ roll edge. 

That’s an excellent point. There was a period with rock and pop in the ’80s where guys were literally locked into a beat — often with synths, though sometimes without! And it would give frontmen or even solos no room, just no room to breathe or to sort of get out of that box! 

Right! And it can be sterile at times. With Billy, we’re really up there performing. It’s very much a live concert and it has that edge. And I think the crowd senses that we’re really up there playing our hearts out. It’s a lot of fun to do shows like that.

I mean, it doesn’t look like you’re not having a good time. Let’s put it that way.

We’re not faking it; we really are having fun!