Andrea Sadia Sunday Stroll

This 1996 disc compiles music from the beginning of Andrea Bocelli's career, with tracks going back as far as 1992. At this point the blind Italian tenor, although trained in opera, was unabashedly a pop singer, just like the many other pop singers who have benefited from classical vocal training at one time or another. There is no controversy about whether Bocelli was a competent opera singer here, for there are no operatic arias, and not even any of the Neapolitan songs that he later essayed in American appearances - all the music is contemporary, heavily string-enveloped (mostly) Italian pop.

Even as "the fourth tenor" has become one of the world's most popular and renowned classical and operatic singers, Andrea Bocelli has been teasing pop fans over the years by recording brilliant duets with the likes of Celine Dion and Sarah Brightman. Who better to helm the Tuscan-born vocal giant's first pure pop album than David Foster, who has made foreign language singing all the rage by introducing the world to Josh Groban? Amore features songs from various musical eras, from the 1920s through the '80s, which Bocelli sings in his native Italian, Spanish, and French.

Giuseppe Maria Boschi was undoubtably one of the most famous and virtuosic baritones of the 18th century. He had a brilliant and intense career on a par with those of renowned contemporary castrati and sopranos, including Farinelli, Senesino, Faustina Bordoni, Margherita Durastanti, Francesca Cuzzoni and Nicolini. He was one of the leading baritones throughout London from 1720 to 1728, sought after by Georg Frederich Händel, Giovanni Bononcini, and Attilio Ariosti. Warrior, father, lover, tyrant: many were the roles to show the nuances of his vocality which, judging by the music written for him, was of exceptional range and well-suited for dramatic roles.

Seventy orchestral and choral artists, conducted by maestro Diego Basso and the emotion in music of flutist Andrea Griminelli, transformed the Dolomites into an exceptional stage for the notes of the Roman composer. The splendid natural balcony of the San Pellegrino Ski Area, on the border between Val di Fassa, in Trentino, and Falcade, in Veneto, saw the excellent performance of some of Morricone's best-loved melodies by seventy orchestral and choral artists from the Italian Rhythmic Symphony Orchestra, the Opera House Opera Choir and the Art Voice Academy Choir, conducted by Maestro Diego Basso. The audience will be enchanted by the undisputed talent of Andrea Griminelli, the internationally renowned flautist, who has received honours and awards all over the world, from the Grammy to the Prix de Paris. The Dolomite peaks of Marmolada, Cima Uomo, Costabella, Pale di San Martino, Pelmo and Civetta (to name but a few), which can be admired from Col Margherita, were thus transformed into the perfect backdrop for an exciting synergy between conductor, orchestra and soloist. The event, designed for a limited number of spectators, respected not only the regulations in force, but also the perfect combination of music and mountains.

Amore is the eleventh studio album by Italian tenor Andrea Bocelli, released on 31 January 2006, for the Valentine's Day season. This album features a remake of Elvis Presley's "Can't Help Falling in Love"; "Because We Believe", the closing song of the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy, which Bocelli wrote and performed; "Somos Novios (It's Impossible), a duet with American pop singer Christina Aguilera; and his first recording of Bésame Mucho, which eventually became one of his signature songs. Amore debuted at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 chart, which at the time was Bocelli's highest chart position in America yet. It went on to sell 1.66 million copies in the United States and was certified Platinum. Bocelli was the seventh best-selling artist of 2006, in the United States, and was also certified Gold and Platinum in several other counties.

Andrea Bacchetti follows his album of sonatas by Baldassarre Galuppi with another little-performed 18th century Venetian, Benedetto Marcello, whose work has a surprisingly modern character. The "Sonata III", for instance, opens with a sequence in which the right hand plays the same note 48 times in rapid succession, while the left cycles quadruplets around it – the kind of gambit you'd expect from a Cage or Feldman, but hardly from a contemporary of Vivaldi. Marcello is said to have once fallen into a grave that opened beneath him, a trauma perhaps responsible for the austere, near-spiritual logic of pieces such as the "Sonata V", where the absence of frills prefigures the enigmatic miniatures of Erik Satie.