Fred Hersch is the ballad master 

Fred's ballads are always so amazing and brilliantly constructed. His ability to improvise counterpoint is just amazing and he's so sensitive and true to the original music! Please consider supporting me over at Patreon ( www.patreon.com/michaellucke ) where you get access to my entire catalog of transcriptions as well as PDFs of every new transcription I do going forward. My patrons also participate in patron-only polls to decide what I will transcribe next!

Another excellent transcription of a sublime Hersch performance. It's wonderful that there are quite a few out there now, he is indeed a master.

Beautiful harmonization and voicing as always!

About 2 years ago I commissioned Michael Lucke to do this fantastic transcription for me. I am fascinated by the genius of Fred Hersch since over 20 years. There is a wonderful coda from minute 8.00 which comes to a progression of beautiful chords which alone is masterful -It is very important to save the Oeuvre of the unique art of Hersch! Vor 2 Jahren beauftragte ich Michael Lucke mit der Transkription dieser phantastischen Ballade. Seit ich per Zufall vor 20 Jahren in einem Barnes and Noble das Stück Aria von seiner Triple CD “Songs without Words” hörte, war ich wie vom Blitz getroffen und bin seither ein absoluter Fan von Fred Hersch und habe ihn in vielen Konzerten sowohl in Europa als auch in den USA erlebt. Man beachte auch die wunderschöne Coda ab Minute 8.00, die 30 Sekunden später in eine herrliche einzigartige Steigerung von chord progressions mündet - allein die Stelle ist es wert, transkribiert zu werden.

Holy guacamole... so beautiful. The transcription is super well done - clean and easy to follow.

Simply sublime playing. Fantastic job on the transcription as well. 👏🙏

just magnificent .. ❤

great tune :) thanx !

Thank you for posting

Yeah... Often when I listen to Fred Hersch I think to myself "Can anyone else play as beautifully as him?"

Divine deliciousness!

Che dio.

The 5/4 bar near the start I'm sure he's just playing a triplet feel for the second half of the bar and it's still in 4/4 You actually write this rhythm many times later on