Fantasies & Delusions | ||||
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Studio album by | ||||
Released | October 2, 2001 [1] | |||
Recorded | June 2001 | |||
Genre | Classical | |||
Length | 76:17 | |||
Label | Sony Classical, Columbia | |||
Producer | Steve Epstein | |||
Billy Joel chronology | ||||
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Fantasies & Delusions is the thirteenth and final [2] studio album composed by American singer-songwriter Billy Joel, released in 2001. His only studio album to contain classical compositions, it features his longtime friend, the British-Korean pianist Richard Hyung-ki Joo, performing compositions written by Joel. It was Joel's 19th album to chart on the Billboard 200, reaching No. 83 in October 2001. The album debuted at No. 1 on Billboard′s Top Classical Albums chart. [3]
Fantasies & Delusions was originally recorded at Cove City Sound Studios, Glen Cove, New York, with help from veteran production coordinator Bill Zampino and Richie Cannata; later, the album was re-recorded in Vienna, Austria, for final release.
Review scores | |
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Source | Rating |
AllMusic | [4] |
Rolling Stone | [5] |
In January 2002, Gramophone UK called the album a "pleasing‚ undemanding sequence of ‘classical’ pieces from one of pop’s giants." [6]
Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic said the album is a "nice collection of pleasingly modest, melodic solo piano pieces." He added that Joel succeeds on it because "he kept his ambitions reasonable and was smart about presentation" while retaining the "recognizable melodic flair" of his pop work. At the end of his review, Erlewine concluded that the tracks "are not pieces that you'll wind up humming" but among "the best in recent memory." [4]
All opuses composed by Billy Joel.
In 2003, pianist Jeffrey Biegel approached Joel about a commission for a piano concerto. As an alternative, Joel suggested that Biegel create a piano concerto using pieces from Fantasies and Delusions. Biegel did so, using four of the pieces: "Fantasy (Film Noir)", "Sorbetto", "Reverie (Villa d'Este)", and "Nunley's Carousel Waltz". After Biegel had written the piano part, Nashville composer Philip Keveren composed the orchestral parts. The work, titled "Symphonic Fantasies for Piano and Orchestra", premiered on June 24, 2006 in Greensboro, North Carolina. Biegel was the pianist, accompanied by the Eastern Philharmonic Orchestra led by Stuart Malina. [7]
Leif Ove Andsnes is a Norwegian pianist and chamber musician. Andsnes has made several recordings for Virgin and EMI. In 2012, Andsnes signed with Sony Classical, and recorded for the label the "Beethoven Journey" project, which included the five piano concertos with the Mahler Chamber Orchestra. The works were recorded over three years, beginning with Nos. 1 and 3 in 2012, followed by Nos. 2 and 4 in 2013 and the Fifth Piano Concerto and Choral Fantasy in 2014. He is represented by IMG.
Karl Tausig was a Polish virtuoso pianist, arranger and composer. He is generally regarded as Franz Liszt's most distinguished pupil and one of the greatest pianists of all time.
Morton Gould was an American composer, conductor, arranger, and pianist.
Murray David Perahia is an American pianist and conductor. He has been considered one of the greatest living pianists. He was the first North American pianist to win the Leeds International Piano Competition, in 1972. Known as a leading interpreter of Bach, Handel, Scarlatti, Mozart, Beethoven, and Schumann, among other composers, Perahia has won numerous awards, including three Grammy Awards from a total of 18 nominations, and 9 Gramophone Awards in addition to its first and only "Piano Award".
Selim Gustaf Adolf Palmgren was a Finnish composer, pianist, and conductor. Palmgren was born in Pori, Finland, February 16, 1878. He studied at the Conservatory in Helsinki from 1895 to 1899, then continued his piano studies in Berlin with Ansorge, Berger and Busoni. He conducted choral and orchestral societies in his own country and made several very successful concert tours as a pianist in the principal cities of Finland and Scandinavia, appearing also as a visiting conductor. In 1921, he went to the United States, where he taught composition at the Eastman School of Music, later returning to Finland, where he died in Helsinki, aged 73. Palmgren was married to the opera singer Maikki Järnefelt.
Robin Greville Holloway is an English composer, academic and writer.
Ambre Hammond is an Australian classical pianist and composer.
My Lives is a box set compilation of demos, outtakes, B-sides, soundtrack cuts, live recordings and album cuts by American singer-songwriter Billy Joel. It was released on November 22, 2005. The album name is derivative of the Billy Joel song "My Life". The liner notes were written by longtime Rolling Stone magazine contributor Anthony DeCurtis.
Phillip Ramey is an American composer, pianist, and writer on music.
Hyung-ki Joo is a Korean-British pianist, composer, comedian and one half of the comedy-musical duo Igudesman & Joo. Billy Joel chose Joo to arrange and record his classical piano pieces for the album Fantasies & Delusions. It was recorded in the Mozart Hall of the Vienna Konzerthaus, and reached the No. 1 spot on the Billboard album chart for 18 weeks.
Arkady Luxemburg is a Moldovan-American composer.
Jan Lisiecki is a Canadian-born classical pianist of Polish ancestry. Lisiecki performs over a hundred concerts annually and has worked closely with the world's leading orchestras and conductors, in a career at the top of the international concert scene spanning over a decade. He has been a recording artist for Deutsche Grammophon since the age of fifteen.
John Carmichael is an Australian pianist, composer and music therapist who has long been resident in the United Kingdom. One of his best known works is the Concierto folklorico for piano and string orchestra. His works for piano form much of his musical output, although he composes for many other instruments. His work is described as expressive and lyrical.
Khatia Buniatishvili is a Georgian concert pianist.
Masquerade was written by Aram Khachaturian in 1941 as incidental music for a production of Mikhail Lermontov's play of the same name. He turned it into a suite with five movements for an orchestra in 1944. It is best known for the Waltz, widely considered one of Khachaturian's finest and most popular pieces, second in popularity only to "Sabre Dance" from the ballet Gayane.
Nunley's was a carousel and amusement park that was located in Baldwin, Nassau County, New York from 1940 to 1995. The namesake carousel was located in Golden City Park, within the neighborhood of Canarsie, Brooklyn, New York City, from 1912 to 1939.
Víkingur Ólafsson is an Icelandic pianist.
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The Sei pezzi per pianoforte, P 044, is a set of six solo piano pieces written by the Italian composer Ottorino Respighi between 1903 and 1905. These predominantly salonesque pieces are eclectic, drawing influence from different musical styles and composers. The pieces have various musical forms and were composed separately and later published together between 1905 and 1907 in a set under the same title for editorial reasons; Respighi had not conceived them as a suite, and therefore did not intend to have uniformity among the pieces. The set, under Bongiovanni, became his first published work. Five of the six pieces are derived from earlier works by Respighi, and only one of them, the "Canone", has an extant manuscript.