Did you know Billy Joel retired from recorded music in 2001 with an album of “classical” Piano pieces? He did, and it’s actually lovely.
Now, if your aesthetics run something along the lines of “Pop Stars are terrible composers no matter how lovely their pieces are,” then you obviously won’t like it. From a different perspective, if your litmus test is slipping in one of these pieces into your local NPR classical playlist to see if anyone suspects it was written by Billy Joel, then you also won’t care very much because no, nothing about this is Piano Man or any form of Rock & Roll to anyone. If, however, you don’t keep the gate padlocked and think “interesting, let’s check out Billy Joel’s classical Piano album,” then i think you’ll be pleasantly surprised that it isn’t even remotely terrible. Not surprising really, Billy Joel does have some passing familiarity with how Pianos work, and that’s really all anyone needs to get started.
Now let’s be Bottle honest here, this is actually Hyung-Ki (Richard) Joo’s album, so whether or not you’re predisposed toward or against Billy Joel writing music, Joo certainly doesn’t present them as anything less than a completely normal assortment of mid-Romantic chamber music pieces that happen to be written by Billy Joel. That’s the source of intellectual friction, assuming you feel it. If you approach this as a Billy Joel album it will make absolutely no sense. If however you consider the possibility that these aren’t the only 12 serious piano pieces Billy Joel ever wrote, instead merely the ones Joo wanted to record on HIS album, then there’s really no excuse for not loving it. He does them all the musical justice you could hope for. Other piano players wanted him to write more serious pieces for them, but Billy Joel consistently declined.
No, he’s no Chopin or Liszt, but good gravy he shouldn’t be. He should just be himself: observent, witty, ready to throw away pretense and say what he really means, musically speaking. Nothing crazy going on here, the Waltzes are waltzes, the Star Crossed Suite is nice, the Invention is not technically an actual invention, but that’s a super nit-picky criticism on my part. It’s all totally listenable, and i just so happen to have a copy on CD for sale if you’re interested.
