Andrea Bocelli - Sentimento

"Sentimento is a fantasy of dreams and love; the tenderness and passion of love's pleasure, and the melancholy and tragedy of love's pain. It embraces all the emotions of being in love. This is a very beautiful and romantic collection of music." - Andrea Bocelli

Sentimento brings together some of the most beautiful and passionate arias and songs in the classical repertory, as well as two artists renowned for their Romantic interpretive approach: tenor Andrea Bocelli, and violinist-conductor-arranger Lorin Maazel. Taking up where duet-partners tenor John McCormack and violinist Fritz Kreisler left off so many years ago, Sentimento evokes "feelings of tenderness, passion, melancholy, yearning and love," according to Maazel. Here, the artists discuss the project and what drew them to it.

Andrea Bocelli: The original idea was to record a CD that revived the fashion for performing violin and voice duets, a long-abandoned style of performance, which was so popular many years ago with famous tenors like Caruso. What we wanted to do was try this again with the orchestra. Once we had finalized the list of titles we realised in fact that all these songs have a common theme, which is Love.

Lorin Maazel: It had always been my dream to orchestrate this extraordinary repertoire, giving the color and the shine and shimmer of an orchestral accompaniment as an underpinning to the tenor voice, plus the violin obbligato which for some reason, in terms of color, seems to suit the tenor voice so well.

AB: Working with Maestro Maazel was a pleasure and an honor for me. I already knew of his extraordinary talents as a composer and orchestrator, through all he has achieved in his remarkable career. Each of his orchestrations for Sentimento reflects the style of the piece, each one radiates an extremely different mood, which all helps to make this album varied.

LM: This music is very inspiring. It makes everyone happy - it's just beautiful to listen to. There isn't a note that isn't fun and isn't a joy to the ear, for musicians and the public at large. It's amazing - it's the kind of music that appeals to everyone. And so our sessions were full of life and sparkle.

AB: I decided to rewrite the text of the famous melody to Liszt's Liebestraum No.3, and all in all I'm very happy. It is like a dream that comes true when you least expect it. "Sogno d'amore" is a love song and it speaks of a love affair that has ended but is still very much alive, painfully alive in the protagonist's mind.

LM: I am very pleased with the way "Sogno d'amore" sounds. Liszt was a marvelous orchestrator himself and I think he would have been very pleased with what we did.

AB: "Plaisir d'amour" is very popular for the simplest reason that it's extremely beautiful and a thing of beauty is a joy forever. Beautiful things, like all the wonders of this world, earn their place in history and are forgotten by no one.

LM: "Plaisir d'amour" is one of those songs that typifies the whole collection of songs that we're offering. It's about a moment of joy and passion and then it's gone. Love is passing, like everything else, like life itself. And Andrea has that quality in his voice and I think perhaps the violin I'm playing, which is an old Stradivarius with a very deep and sensuous sound, just suits the material and subject matter. In short, I think the combination of the two voices, the voice of the violin I have the pleasure of playing and the natural instrument that is in Andrea's throat: that interaction is amazing... something very vibrant, very intense and very passionate.

AB: "En Aranjuez con tu amor" has a haunting quality and a sadness, which is beautiful and entrances everyone who hears it. Maestro Maazel's magnificent orchestration gives "Aranjuez" the grandeur it deserves; it was a great pleasure to perform to it.