Ed Sheeran’s new Heinz ketchup ad features some Chopin and ‘fake’ Mozart

18 June 2019, 13:19 | Updated: 18 June 2019, 17:23

Ed Sheeran takes a starring role in the new Heinz Tomato Ketchup ad – but what’s that lovely classical piano music playing in the background? We’ve got the answer.

Ed Sheeran has long been a fan of Heinz Tomato Ketchup. He has tweeted about his love for the stuff, and even has the Heinz logo tattooed on his arm (that’s commitment).

And now, he’s starring in their new commercial.

Sheeran actually pitched the idea for the ad in a DM to Heinz – so of course, they made sure it happened for real.

The advert starts as Sheeran walks into a “super posh restaurant” – “the kind with chandeliers, and paintings on the wall and way too many forks”.

He continues: “I think classical music was playing…”

But what is the pianist actually playing?

As Sheeran says the line, the camera pans over to a smartly clad pianist, who is playing a slightly adapted version of Chopin’s Waltz in A minor No. 11, Op Posth. Have a listen to the original here:

Sheeran continues: “… Or maybe it was jazz.” At this point, the pianist turns out a couple of bars of improvised jazz.

But as Sheeran confirms it was “definitely classical”, the music shifts again. Moving away from the waltz and into 4/4 time, the music turns into what sounds like a Mozart piano sonata.

After a bit of digging, we found that the music and mixing is credited to Beacon Street Studios, a music production company in LA who write bespoke music as part of their package deals.

To confirm our suspicions, we asked Thomas Hewitt Jones, a British contemporary classical composer, to have a listen to the ad. He said: “My guess is that it is pastiche – this happens a lot with rerecords. But it sounds like they’ve got an in-house composer to write some ‘Mozart’.

“It may be a couple of bars of something but the musical clue to me is that it has been messed about with to fit the picture.”

Well, there you have it.