A pianist turned this Bond song into a one-handed Romantic piano masterpiece

26 September 2017, 15:22 | Updated: 27 September 2017, 14:05

The brilliant pianist Ji Liu was warming up backstage at Classic FM Live when he let rip with this epic transcription of Writing’s on the Wall, the song written for the recent James Bond film Spectre

Sam Smith’s ‘Writing’s on the Wall’ was the first ever Bond song to reach No.1 in the charts.

The song caught the eye (and ear!) of the great young pianist Ji Liu. He decided to put his own stamp on the song… and create a one-handed transcription from it.

The result is Bond meets Rachmaninov – and it’s completely stunning.

Here's what Ji Liu himself said about the transcription:

"This arrangement is not only a tribute to Sam's gorgeous song, but also a tribute to many composers such as Ravel and Scriabin who had composed difficult but beautiful piano pieces for left-hand alone. The reason I deliberately decided to set up the piece for left-hand alone is that the extreme register of the piano keyboard by left-hand and the almost impressionism-like texture fits the dark, yearning, solitary but heroic character of the original song neatly. James Bond takes risk and solves impossible missions, so does pianist!"

It's not the first time Ji's tackled a Bond theme. Here's his take on Adele's Skyfall