Andrea Bocelli’s Sentimento

It is Valentine’s Day. This is the time traditionally set aside to celebrate love and all the feelings that go with it. So here is an album that is all about feelings. That is why it is titled Sentimento. That translates into sentiments or feelings and the album contains songs about feelings, feelings of tenderness, passion, melancholy, yearning and love of course. The entire package though is in Italian but it does not really matter in what language the lyrics are written because tenor Andrea Bocelli has more than enough feelings in his incredible voice to express anything.

Bocelli is the same tenor who to the amazement of the whole world deftly bridged the gap between pop and classical music. He is considered the heir to the tradition spawned by Enrico Caruso, widened by Mario Lanza, brought to international attention by the trio of Jose Carreras, Placido Domingo and Luciano Pavarotti and then brought to the realm of pop by Bocelli. They all understood and made use of the technology of recorded music.

So while better trained and in some cases more talented classical artists were giving their best in opera houses, the recordings of the likes of Mario Lanza and Bocelli are being played in machines in even the farthest reaches of the world. Bocelli’s pop successes include songs like Con te Partiro, Time to Say Goodbye and The Prayer. He records operas too but it is when he combines his classical voice with pop melodies that fans like him best. Somehow his singing, so smooth and elegant renders the melodies doubly beautiful.

Familiar, beautiful melodies are what Sentimento is all about. The album was originally conceived as a duet between Bocelli’s voice and the violin of conductor and orchestrator Lorin Maazel. For some unknown reason though Maazel went overboard with the orchestrating so what we have instead is Bocelli singing with an orchestra punctuated with violin solos here and there. But it does not really matter what the original concept was and what results eventually turned up. What is more important is that Sentimento set out to explore feelings of love and Bocelli easily accomplished that.

The album is made up of famous classical melodies to which lyrics have been added. Some are fairly recent like En Aranjuez con tu Amor by Rodrigo. Others are really old like Sogno d’ amore, which has lyrics written by Bocelli himself. That title translates into Dream of Love and the tune is actually the most famous Liebestraum by Franz Liszt. What they have in common is the fact that they easily allowed themselves to be turned into songs. Bocelli, whose singing seems to gain strength with each new album, does justice to all of them and as always, he is a joy to listen to. But the best thing about Sentimento is that it introduces those kids who liked Bocelli’s duet of The Prayer with Celine Dion to Liszt, Rossini, Offenbach and other composers of old.

The other songs in the album are Mattinata by Leoncavallo; Barcarolle by Offenbach; La Danza by Rossini; Plaisir d’ Amour by Martini; Musica Proibita by Gastaldon; Occhi di fata by Denza; Vaghissima sembianza by Donaudy; and Lalba separa dalla luce l’ombra, La Serenata, Lultima canzone, Malia, Ideate, Sogno, Avuchella and Verrei morire all by Tosti.

Academy nominees

The list of Academy Award nominees is out and although he lost out at the Golden Globes, rapper and now actor Eminem still gets to compete at the Oscars with his song Lose Yourself from the motion picture 8 Mile. The other nominees for Best Original Song this year are Burn It Blue from Frida; Father and Daughter by Paul Simon from The Wild Thornberrys Movie; I Move On a new song composed for the movie version of the stage musical Chicago; and The Hands That Built America by U2 from Gangs of New York, which won the Globes.

Up for Best Original Score are John Williams for Catch Me If You Can, Elmer Berstein for Far from Heaven, Elliot Goldenthal for Frida, Philip Glass for The Hours, and Thomas Newman for Road to Perdition. I know people will wonder how the music for Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets were left out of the list, but such things happen. Even Madonna’s Die Another Day from the James Bond flick of the same title did not make it to the Best Original Song nomination.