Ballade pour Adeline

"Ballade pour Adeline" (French for "Ballad for Adeline") is a 1976 instrumental composed by Paul de Senneville and Olivier Toussaint. Paul de Senneville composed the piece as a tribute to his newborn daughter, Adeline. The first recording was by Richard Clayderman and world-wide sales now have reached 22 million copies in 38 countries. It remains Clayderman's signature hit.

The French trumpeter Jean-Claude Borelly recorded his version in the early 80's which used the same instrumental backing track as the original recording.

Richard Clayderman performed a duet of the track with guitarist Francis Goya in 1999, and was released on their studio album, Together. Again this recording used the original backing track.

A new version of this piece was released on the Richard Clayderman studio album A Thousand Winds in 2007 to celebrate 30 years since the original release of "Ballade Pour Adeline". Clayderman was accompanied by a new string arrangement by Olivier Toussaint.

In 1976, Richard Clayderman (real name Philippe Pagès) received a telephone call from Olivier Toussaint, a well-known French record producer, who, with his partner, Paul de Senneville, was looking for a pianist to record a gentle piano ballad. Paul had composed this ballad as a tribute to his new born second daughter “Adeline”. The 23-year-old Philippe Pagès was auditioned along with 20 other hopefuls and, to his amazement, he got the job. "We liked him immediately", says Paul de Senneville, "His very special and soft touch on the keyboards combined with his reserved personality and good looks very much impressed Olivier Toussaint and I. We made our decision very quickly".

Philippe Pagès' name was changed to Richard Clayderman (he adopted his great-grandmother's last name to avoid mispronunciation of his real name outside France), and the single took off, selling an astonishing 22 million copies in 38 countries. It was called "Ballade pour Adeline". "When I signed him", says Olivier Toussaint, "I told him that if we sell 10,000 singles it will be marvellous, because it was disco at that time and we could not bet on such a ballad being a winner..... We could not imagine that it would be so big".

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Wikipedia