Ennio Morricone

The song Nella fantasia (“In My Fantasy”) was originally an instrumental piece called Gabriel’s Oboe from the motion picture The Mission (1986), but British soprano Sarah Brightman hounded Academy Award® -winning composer Ennio Morricone (EHN-yoh mor-ee-KOHN-eh, b.1928) for several years to turn it into a song until he finally relented. With an original Italian text by Chiara Ferraù, Nella fantasia first appeared on Brightman’s 1998 album, Eden. The song’s titular fantasy envisions a just world of peace and harmony, a world that grows ever brighter where we may “… dream of spirits that are always free, Like the clouds that fly, Full of humanity in the depths of the spirit.”

--Intermezzo Sunday Concerts, October 21, 2007 (Cromley and Friends: Voices & Violin, Bach to Broadway)