This Italian composer builds intimate piano pieces into expansive epics

As bands like Sigur Rós and Godspeed You! Black Emperor have pushed rock music into modern classical territory, Ludovico Einaudi’s Elements achieves the same crossover coming from the other side. His inspirations may be rooted in academia (Kandinsky, the periodic table of the elements, Euclidean geometry), but these melancholic compositions are both accessible and instantly affecting. Through intensifying piano-and-strings interplay, pocket-sized symphonies like “Petricor” and “Whirling Winds” match the captivating crescendos of the stormiest post-rock odysseys.