Sing 2 Sempre

It’s just that simple. He does not sing just because he has a beautiful, expressive voice. He does not sing just because it brings him success and house-rocking acclaim. Fernando Varela sings because that is who he is. He sings what he loves, whether it is a pop standard, an original song he had a hand in writing, or Puccini’s noblest tenor aria “Nessun dorma.” The underlying truth – who he is and what he does, in everything he dreams and achieves – is what brings Fernando Varela to the center of a worldwide stage with the release of Vivere.

LSO Live presents Sir John Eliot Gardiner’s award-winning Mendelssohn series together in its entirety for the first time. Captured over three seasons during critically-acclaimed concerts in the Barbican Hall, this box set offers listeners the definitive account of Gardiner’s unique take on Mendelssohn with the London Symphony Orchestra: a blend between the conductor’s wide-ranging expertise and the Orchestra’s signature sound.

LSO Live presents Sir John Eliot Gardiner’s award-winning Mendelssohn series together in its entirety for the first time. Captured over three seasons during critically-acclaimed concerts in the Barbican Hall, this box set offers listeners the definitive account of Gardiner’s unique take on Mendelssohn with the London Symphony Orchestra: a blend between the conductor’s wide-ranging expertise and the Orchestra’s signature sound.

"Imagine the universe beginning to sing and resound," Mahler wrote of his Symphony No. 8, the "Symphony of a Thousand." "It is no longer human voices; it is planets and suns revolving." Mahler was late Romantic music's ultimate big thinker. In his own lifetime he was generally regarded as a conductor who composed on the side, producing huge, bizarre symphonies accepted only by a cult following. Born in 1860 in Kalischt, Bohemia, he came from a middle-class family.

Bocelli is the second studio album by Andrea Bocelli, released in 1995 on the Polydor GmbH label. This album is the follow-up to his debut album, Il mare calmo della sera. In Germany, the album was certified 4× Platinum for shipping two million units, making it one of the best-selling albums ever in the country. From his childhood on the family farm in rural Tuscany to the worldwide stage, Andrea Bocelli has achieved phenomenal success. His singing is only partially the point and his fame owes much more to the aura of romance and the romantic archetype that's attached to him. This is basically for the die-hard fan who simply must have all Bocelli titles in possession. Bocelli was his first release, before the singer had hit the big time and before he had been marketed as a bona fide opera singer. Much of the same material was later released on Bocelli's big seller Romanza. As far as his opera chops go, Bocelli has won the approval of Pavarotti but likely will not wow enthusiasts.

Rarely performed but recognized as a hidden masterpiece, Sibelius's score for Jedermann is unusual in that the music closely follows the words and action of this morality play, intensifying Everyman's hubris, penance, escape from the Devil's clutches and ultimate salvation.The Two Serious Melodies reflect Sibelius' dark mood during the difficult years of World War I, while In memoriam resonates with his preoccupation with death in 1909 following a life-saving throat operation, and was performed at his own funeral in 1957. This is the fourth of a six volume set that explores Jean Sibelius's orchestral works beyond the higher profile symphonies, violin concerto and tone poems.Finnish conductor Leif Segerstam is an acclaimed Sibelius interpreter, having been awarded the annual Finnish State Prize for Music in 2004; and in 2005 the highly esteemed Sibelius Medal.

No figure in 20th century American classical music had as prominent or controversial a career – or did more to sell classical music to the general public as something genuinely exciting, and worth getting into a sweat over – than Leonard Bernstein. For more than 30 years, from his assumption of the post of Music Director of the New York Philharmonic in 1958 until the final concerts that he conducted in obviously failing health near the end of his life in 1990, he was the most prominent and widely recognized American-born conductor in the world, and the dominant personality in American classical music as both a conductor and, to a lesser degree, a composer. A flamboyant public figure, he burst three different times on the musical world – twice in classical with a rush of success on Broadway in between – in a blaze of glory, in the space of 15 years; and over a career lasting from the early '40s until the beginning of the '90s, he never lost an opportunity to advance his reputation as well as the cause of music.

Caballé's Tosca is one of the most ravishingly on record, with scarcely a less than beautiful note throughout, save where an occasional phrase lies a touch low for her. José Carreras recorded Tosca twice in the 1970s–his best years–but his voice was much better for Colin Davis when recording this set in 1976 than it was for Herbert von Karajan's 1979 interpretation. Davis's direction is flexible but dramatic and finely detailed, and the secondary singers are all very good.

It’s just that simple. He does not sing just because he has a beautiful, expressive voice. He does not sing just because it brings him success and house-rocking acclaim. Fernando Varela sings because that is who he is. He sings what he loves, whether it is a pop standard, an original song he had a hand in writing, or Puccini’s noblest tenor aria “Nessun dorma.” The underlying truth – who he is and what he does, in everything he dreams and achieves – is what brings Fernando Varela to the center of a worldwide stage with the release of Vivere.