Verdi: Va, pensiero (from Nabucco) (Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves, Coro di Schiavi Ebrei) - download (MP3 & FLAC)

Leading tenor, Rolando Villazon, has personally selected 34 great Verdi tracks, sung by the great names of the present and past, both to celebrate Verdi at 200 and to inspire a new generation with the composer’s great arias, powerful choruses and popular tunes.

The tracklist is framed by two stirring overtures, it includes famous numbers by all the leading singers on DG and Decca (as well as a couple from EMI), including Roberto Alagna, Carlo Bergonzi, Grace Bumbry, Joseph Calleja, José Carreras, Plácido Domingo, Renée Fleming, Anna Netrebko, Luciano Pavorotti, Katia Ricciarelli, Joan Sutherland and BrynTerfel. There are rousing choruses and several extracts from the Requiem too. It’s a splendid 150-minute collection.

The striking cover includes one of Rolando’s inimitable Verdi sketches, and will include a sticker incorporating a photo of the artist. The all-colour booklet has an article by journalist Richard Lawrence which also takes in some quotes from the artist in a recent interview for this release.

Villazón is confident that every excerpt on these discs will make the listener want to hear the complete work. “No other composer creates such an immediate link with the audience. Go to see La traviata: you hear those rhythms, those melodies, that dramatic force, and you are drawn into his world. It doesn’t matter whether you love opera or know nothing about it: it just captures you, it grabs you.” Listening to the numbers from La traviata here, you have to agree.

At four in the afternoon a single blast of cannon fire signals the opening of the gates of many a stately home in summer and thousands of picnickers pour into grounds, set up camp and prepare to listen to preordained set of classical hits.

This is a re-issue of an album first issued 1992 celebrating the years that Carl conducted Summer Concerts it is a unique collection of popular works presented in unfamiliar but stunning arrangements.

Finlandia is recorded adding a new choral arrangement with an fervently patriotic American text.

The 1812 Overture recorded with a choral arrangement using Tsarist text.

Pomp and Circumstance March No.1 sung with its ‘Land of Hope and Glory’ text.

Elgar’s outrageously elaborate arrangement of Parry’s Jerusalem.

The version of Souza’s Stars and Stripes March is arranged by David Cullen into an orchestral explosion.

Recorded in Abbey Road Studios this is a memorable album of Carl conducting Classical Festival Favourites.

Russell Watson explores the full-blooded romantic potential of the operatic repertoire with this collection of some of the best-loved tenor arias of all time.

Some of the most popular choruses from Italian opera, performed by the Chorus and Orchestra of the Maggio Musicale in Florence and conductor Maurizio Arena, are presented in this collection. Amongst the pieces featured are works by Verdi, the famous Va’ Pensiero… from Nabucco and the Soldiers’ Chorus from Il Trovatore, and the Humming Chorus from Puccini’s Madame Butterfly.

Just how great an effect opera choruses have had in the past can be judged on the sole example of Va pensiero, sull’ali dorate (Fly thoughts, on golden wings) from Verdi’s Nabucco. At that time of political unrest this particular chorus soon achieved hit status. Everyone understood the text as a rejection of serfdom and foreign oppression, and the melody of the chorus became so well-known then that it could be heard whistled in the streets of many an Italian city.