The Sound of Music Fantasy - OUT NOW

I’m so happy to introduce to you all my new single: a piano fantasy based on the themes of The Sound of Music, in celebration of the musical’s 60th anniversary. The piece pays tribute to Rodgers and Hammerstein’s beautiful and iconic melodies, adding a few jazz and classical influences.

There is a long tradition in classical music of virtuoso instrumental transcriptions based on opera, from Carmen fantasies to various Liszt transcriptions, and I wanted to do the same with a musical.

I have wonderful childhood memories watching The Sound of Music with my family around Christmas, and I wanted to pay tribute to these beautiful melodies. This piece has influences ranging from jazz to classical composers like Ravel, Liszt, Chopin, Scriabin, Godowsky and Rachmaninov. There is even a small one bar quote from Debussy’s L’isle joyeuse, one of my favourite piano works hidden in there. I wanted this to be a celebration of music.

At the start, I set out to write a small simple work using one theme, but it quickly became much more ambitious in scope. In the words of Ravel describing Scarbo, one of the most fearsome works of the piano repertoire: “perhaps I let myself get carried away.”

In these difficult times, I hope that this piece provides some smiles and comfort to those who need it, and brings back fond memories, the way that it does for me.

Emmanuel Despax

“To Miho and Yumi, my two favorite things.”

Special thanks:

To the great people of Rodgers & Hammerstein for letting me do this; Stewart French for his wonderful work; Terence Lewis at Jaques Samuel Pianos for his incredible generosity and support, and providing a beautiful Fazioli Pianoforti ; Steve Goss for his invaluable guidance; Luca Sage for this beautiful photo; and Damaris Brown at Artium Media Relations, and Steve Long and the whole wonderful Signum Records team for their amazing work and support. Thank you! 🙏