Product Description
An arrangement of Moon River for String Orchestra and optional drum kit.
"Moon River" is a song composed by Henry Mancini with lyrics by Johnny Mercer. It was originally performed by Audrey Hepburn in the 1961 American movie "Breakfast at Tiffany's", winning an Academy Award for Best Original Song.The song also won the 1962 Grammy Awards for Record of the Year and Song of the Year.
19611962
It became the theme song for Andy Williams, who first recorded it in
1961 and performed it at the Academy Awards ceremony in 1962. He sang
the first eight bars of the song at the beginning of each episode of his
eponymous television show and named his production company and venue in
Branson, Missouri after it. His autobiography is called "Moon River"
and Me. Williams' version was never released as a single, but it charted
as an LP track that he recorded for Columbia on a hit album of 1962.
Cadence Records' president Archie Bleyer disliked Williams' version, as
Bleyer believed it had little or no appeal to teenagers. Forty years
later in 2002, a 74-year-old Williams sang the song at the conclusion of
the live telecast of the NBC 75th Anniversary Special to a standing
ovation.
The song's success was responsible for relaunching Mercer's career as a
songwriter, which had stalled in the mid-1950s because rock and roll had
replaced jazz standards as the popular music of the time. The song's
popularity is such that it has been used as a test sample in a study on
people's memories of popular songs.
Comments about the lyrics have noted that they are particularly
reminiscent of Mercer's youth in the Southern United States and his
longing to expand his horizons. Robert Wright wrote in The Atlantic
Monthly, "This is a love sung to wanderlust. Or a romantic song in which
the romantic partner is the idea of romance." An inlet near Savannah,
Georgia, Johnny Mercer's hometown, was named Moon River in honor of him
and this song.
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This product was created by a member of ArrangeMe, Hal Leonard's global self-publishing community of independent composers, arrangers, and songwriters. ArrangeMe allows for the publication of unique arrangements of both popular titles and original compositions from a wide variety of voices and backgrounds.