Although Billy Joel hasn’t recorded a traditional studio album since 1993’s River of Dreams, that doesn’t mean that he has fallen out of love with music as an art form. The singer-songwriter still keeps himself occupied by creating compositions on his piano. The only difference is that they come from another musical realm compared to his brand of beloved pop music.

Artists naturally evolve over their careers, and Joel has no desire to add to his body of work. He’s content with the catalogue of music that he’s managed to create over the last number of decades and will continue to tour those songs for as long as his body allows him. However, one piece of the jigsaw was missing from Joel’s repertoire until 2001.

For almost all his life, Joel has maintained an obsessive interest in classical music. The genre was his gateway into appreciating the beauty of music, and while his interests later veered, as he got older, the love reared its head once more, fuelling him to write Fantasies and Delusions.

Speaking about the album in 2001 on his YouTube channel, Joel disclosed: “I write all the time. People might not know it because I don’t record it, but I’m just writing thematic music, and that’s where my interest is right now, which is what became this album, Fantasies and Delusions, which is piano music. It was pure music, which has been my first love since before I even tried to write a song.”

He added: “I loved music, even before they were songs. I loved Beethoven, I loved Mozart, I loved Chopin. I loved instrumental music. Actually, the closest to this recording of any of the recordings I’ve done, this is more me than anything right now.”

Joel endearingly continued: “I love this thing. This was me trying my hand at instrumental music, and I got another pianist to play because I’m not as good. I can write it, but I can’t play it the way it should be played, so I got a hired gun.”

His “hired gun” was the internationally acclaimed Richard Joo, who was brought to Joel’s attention by his brother, Alexander, who works as a classical musician in Vienna. While Joel could have attempted to record these compositions himself, he needed to hand the reigns over to somebody else if he wanted them to reach their full potential.

Additionally, Joel revealed he wanted Fantasies and Delusions to help teach the next generation about his talent. He remarked: “I’m picturing a piano teacher with a student, and the student goes, ‘I want to play a Billy Joel song’. Well, if he tries to go out and get ‘Piano Man’ or ‘It’s Still Rock ‘N’ Roll To Me’, it sounds like crap on the piano. No matter how it’s arranged, it doesn’t sound right on the piano. I wanted the piano teacher to be able to say, ‘You want to play a Billy Joel piece? Here, take this book home.’”

As much as Joel is proud of songs such as ‘Piano Man’ and ‘It’s Still Rock ‘N’ Roll To Me’, the tracks don’t showcase the technical side of his artistry in the same way as the legacy-defining Fantasies and Delusions.