Fantasies & Delusions

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Fantasies & Delusions
Studio album by Billy Joel

Publication
(s)

September 27, 2001

admission

2001

Label (s) Columbia Records

Format (s)

LP, CD

Genre (s)

Classical music

Title (number)

12

running time

76:17

occupation

production

Steve Epstein

Studio (s)

Cove City Sound Studios, Glen Cove , New York and Vienna

chronology
2000 Years - The Millennium Concert
(2000) 		Fantasies & Delusions The Essential Billy Joel
(2001)

Fantasies & Delusions is the first studio album by the American musician Billy Joel with “classical” solo piano compositions in a stylistic and virtuoso style based on composers of the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries. The piano pieces of the 2001 work were recorded by the pianist Hyung-ki Joo .

background

Billy Joel had released his last rock / pop studio album with River of Dreams in 1993. Although he remained musically active and also played a few live concerts, he lost interest in popular music and turned to classical music . She was close to him from early childhood, his father was a classical pianist and Joel used to take piano lessons. So the idea arose to do something completely different and so he wrote some classical pieces that he could not play on the piano himself. His brother Alexander Joel , a symphony orchestra conductor and pianist himself, finally introduced him to the concert pianist Hyung-ki Joo.

The album was recorded at Cove City Sound Studios in Glen Cove , New York under the musical direction of Bill Zampino and Joel's longtime band member Richie Cannata . But Joel and Joo were not satisfied with the recordings. Therefore the final recordings took place in Vienna . The album was produced by Steve Epstein, who is known as a classical music producer and teaches at McGill University in Montreal , Quebec , Canada.

Hyung-ki Joo already adopted the name Richard Joo for the US market and is listed as such on the cover.

The album was finally released on September 27, 2001 by Columbia Records. In addition to a normal CD edition, the album was also released as an SACD . In 2008 the album was rereleased, but it did not differ from the original version.

The album is so far Billy Joel's last studio album.

Cover

The album cover mimics the title page of a sheet of music and is a tribute to the G. Schirmer Co. sheet music that Joel played as a child.

Track list

  1. Opus 3. Reverie ("Villa D'Este") - 9:31
  2. Opus 2. Waltz # 1 ("Nunley's Carousel") - 6:58
  3. Opus 7. Aria ("Grand Canal") - 11:08
  4. Opus 6. Invention in C Minor - 1:04
  5. Opus 1. Soliloquy ("On a Separation") - 11:26
  6. Opus 8. Suite for Piano ("Star-Crossed"): I. Innamorato - 7:46
  7. Opus 8. Suite for Piano ("Star-Crossed"): II. Sorbetto - 1:30
  8. Opus 8. Suite for Piano (“Star-Crossed”): III. Delusion - 3:37
  9. Opus 5. Waltz # 2 ("Steinway Hall") - 7:00
  10. Opus 9. Waltz # 3 ("For Lola") - 3:28
  11. Opus 4. Fantasy ("Film Noir") - 8:56
  12. Opus 10. Air ("Dublinesque") - 3:46

Music genre

The album consists of small nostalgic piano pieces in the tradition of romantic pieces by Chopin , Liszt , Brahms and Debussy as well as other composers of the 19th century. The song titles, which all have an “opus” and a number, refer on the one hand to the design medium ( Aria , Waltz , Air , Suite , Invention , Soliloquy , Reverie and Fantasy ) and a title that defines the theme.

success

Fantasies & Delusions peaked at # 83 on the Billboard 200 and stayed on the charts for six weeks. It was the 19th chart success for Joel and the first and only chart placement for the pianist. It peaked at number 1 on the Billboard Classical Albums chart and stayed in the charts for a total of 60 weeks.

Critics also praised the work, especially because of its musical recourse to 19th century classical music, although some critics lacked a bit of depth and hoped for further development on later albums. There was also consensus that it did not correspond to the classical tradition, but was more of a continuation of Joel's work in a different way.

Stephen Thomas Erlewine gave Allmusic three out of five stars and praised the album as a beautiful pop-classical crossover that was better than that of some other musicians such as Joe Jackson and Paul McCartney . The main reasons are that Billy Joel can realistically assess his musical abilities and therefore would not publish symphonies, but small piano pieces. James Hunter awarded two and a half (out of five) stars in Rolling Stone . He also praised Joel's self-restraint and emphasized Joo's piano skills.

Gramophone.co.uk, a classical music site, wrote that it would be a set of pastiche pieces, but they do well. Joo in particular has a likeable way of interpreting the pieces.

Symphonic Fantasies

In 2003 the pianist Jeffrey Biegel approached Joel with the request to write a piano concerto for him. As an alternative, Joel offered that Biegel could create a piano concert from the works of Fantasies & Delusions . The work consists of the pieces "Fantasy (Film Noir)", "Sorbetto", "Reverie (Villa d'Este)" and "Nunley's Carousel Waltz". While Biegel wrote the piano parts, the American Philip Keveren took over the composition for the orchestral passages . The result, entitled “Symphonic Fantasies for Piano and Orchestra”, premiered on June 24, 2006 in Greensboro. Biegel was accompanied by the Eastern Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Stuart Malina .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Bryan Wawzenek: 15 Years Ago: Billy Joel Gets Classical on 'Fantasies and Delusions'. In: Ultimate Classic Rock. Accessed March 10, 2019 .
  2. ↑ a b Fantasies & Delusions (2001). In: One Final Serenade: Songs of Billy Joel. Accessed March 10, 2019 .
  3. ^ A b c Thomas MacFarlane: Experiencing Billy Joel: A Listener's Companion . Rowman & Littlefield, 2016, ISBN 978-1-4422-5769-6 , pp. 100 ff . ( google.de [accessed on March 10, 2019]).
  4. ↑ Steve Epstein. In: Discogs . Retrieved March 10, 2019 .
  5. ↑ Billy Joel And Richard Joo - Fantasies & Delusions. In: Discogs . Retrieved March 10, 2019 .
  6. ↑ Billy Joel Admits He's Not in An Album State of Mind. In: Billboard.com. Retrieved March 10, 2019 .
  7. ↑ Joel Fantasies and Delusions. In: Gramophone.co.uk. January 9, 2013, accessed March 10, 2019 .
  8. ^ Richard Joo Billy Joel: Fantasies & Delusions Chart History. In: Billboard.com. Retrieved March 10, 2019 .
  9. ^ Richard Joo Chart History. In: Billboard.com. Retrieved March 10, 2019 .
  10. ↑ Fantasies & Delusions at Allmusic (English). Retrieved March 10, 2019.
  11. ↑ James Hunter: Fantasies & Delusions (Music for Solo Piano). In: Rolling Stone. October 17, 2005. Retrieved March 10, 2019 (American English).
  12. ↑ Guest: Joel Fantasies and Delusions. In: Gramophon.co.uk. January 9, 2013, accessed March 10, 2019 .
  13. ^ Billy Joel - Symphonic Fantasies for Piano and Orchestra (2006) - Music Sales Classical. Retrieved March 10, 2019 .
  14. ^ Brian Wise: The Growing Field Of Interpreting Billy Joel . In: The New York Times . August 6, 2006, ISSN  0362-4331 ( nytimes.com [accessed March 10, 2019]).
  15. ↑ Jeffrey Biegel. In: Jeffrey Biegel's official website. Retrieved March 10, 2019 .