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Joe Hisaishi PORCO ROSSO, piano solo, ABRSM Grade 8 2025-26 sheet music
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Porco Rosso Soundtrack (紅の豚 サウンドトラック, Kurenai no Buta Soundtrack) is an album released on Jul 25, 1992. It features the soundtrack of Porco Rosso.
The music for Porco Rosso
The music for Porco Rosso, the fifth collaboration between director Hayao Miyazaki and Joe Hisaishi, was created as in the previous four films, with Joe Hisaishi first creating an image album inspired by director Miyazaki’s music notes and image boards. After that, it was produced using the methodology of composing the soundtrack for the main story again.
However, during the actual production process, two major elements that had not been seen in the previous four methodologies were added, giving the score a unique characteristic as a whole. One is the element of jazz. Another factor is that director Miyazaki paid attention to an original solo album produced by Hisaishi (not directly related to the film), and used the songs from that album in the score. Both of these are closely related to the 1920s, which is the period in which this work is set.
Although Hisaishi has a strong image as a film composer who makes full use of orchestras and as a composer of avant-garde minimal music, he has been listening to the music of Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Mal Waldron since his student days. Takuishi is actually good at music that utilizes jazz-like idioms, and he was particularly influenced by Waldron’s piano.
The story of Porco Rosso unfolds in the Adriatic Sea, Italy in the 1920s. At that time, jazz was so popular that it was called the ‘Jazz Age,’ so Hisaishi’s choice to express the theme for the main characters Marco and Gina using jazz piano was a logical choice from a chronological perspective. Probably. In fact, this theme is played for the first time in the main story, in a jazz setting played on a piano in a bar. This is the “Days of No Return” heard on this album.
However, that is not the only reason why this theme was written on jazz piano.
In other words, the jazz piano theme of Days of No Return also serves to evoke the cinematic memory ofCasablanca” through music. However, Hisaishi did not write this theme in the style of as time passes by'', but instead he wrote it as a theme based on Miyazaki's unique music, the Hisaishi melody”, while keeping it in line with director Miyazaki’s worldview. That is the great thing about this theme, and it is no exaggeration to say that it is the most important point that makes Porco Rosso''Porco Rosso.”
To briefly touch on other songs that came out of the Image album, the theme for the Mammayuto air pirates, Flying Boatmen, was written as a kind of parody of military marches. It's a song that skillfully expresses the brave yet somewhat stupid characters of the sky pirates. A mandolin joins the performance midway throughThe Piccolo Women,” a cheerful theme about the female workers working at the Piccolo Company, and it goes without saying that the choice of instrument reflects the Italian setting.
Hisaishi released his own solo album My Lost City'' in February 1992, almost parallel to the production of thePorco Rosso” image album. Inspired by the works of F. Scott Fitzgerald, which Hisaishi loved reading at the time, this work is themed around the 1920s, or the ‘Jazz Age’ era, as depicted by Fitzgerald (the album’s name is also a reference to Fitzgerald’s essay). (derived from the title of the collection). Porco Rosso is also set in the 1920s, but the period setting for My Lost City” comes from Fitzgerald and was not inspired by Porco Rosso.'' Despite this, Hisaishi says,It felt very fateful” that his solo album and director Miyazaki’s latest work happened to cover the same era.