London Poetry

2008 album from the world famous tenor, based upon poems by the late Pope John Paul II. The album is performed with the London Symphony Orchestra and features duets with Andrea Bocelli, Vanessa Williams and Katherine Jenkins. The lyrics are in Italian, English and Spanish. Placido is known for his versatile and strong voice, possessing a ringing and dramatic tone throughout its range. He is considered to be a talented and hard-working musician but is also admired for his acting ability, his musicality and musical intellect, and the number and variety of opera roles that he has mastered.

'Four Nocturnes' (1992-3, revised 2010; perf. London Voices & National Symphony Orchestra Chamber Ensemble, conducted by Ben Parry) contains settings of Byron’s night poetry. The range of subjects and moods is enormous, from gothic black to risqué farce, and this provides the composer with a rich quarry for an extended piece. In 'Viola Sonata' (2012, revised 2015; perf. Caleb Sibley, viola & Aleksander Szram, piano) the long melody heard at the beginning of the sonata is reintroduced many times in different guises. This gives the piece its unity, while the re-imagining – retrograding, inversion, canon, rhythmic compression, reduction to chords, etc – provides the variety.