Customer Reviews

Sentimento: Andrea Bocelli with Lorin Maazel and the London Symphony Orchestra [Limited Edition w/ Bonus Track]

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The voice of tenor Andrea Bocelli is a polarizing force in music. His fans consider him heaven-sent, a near divine presence. Detractors consider him a thin-voiced pop singer ill-suited to the world of Classical music. These Bocelli-bashers too often forget that Italian opera in the days of Rossini and Verdi was popular music, and that Pavarotti is no stranger to a wider audience. Popularizing is not necessarily pandering.

In Sentimento, Bocelli may win over some of his less vehement detractors. His voice has matured beautifully, developing a rich and intense tone color. Here, performing the music that he does best, Bocelli is in his element. The CD contains fourteen Ninteenth century Italian songs and three arrangements, all scored for tenor, violin solo and orchestra. Lorin Maazel complements Bocelli's performance with his conducting and violin solos. He enriches the vocal line first in alternation, then fluttering around the tenor with trills and faster notes, next soaring above the whole with harmonics as transparent as crystal.

Maazel also provides thrilling and sensitive arrangements for this music, most of which was originally composed for tenor and piano. Xylophone and trombone glissandi in Rossini's La Danza, the most vigorous selection on the CD, add an unexpected flair.

The CD's highlight is surely Tosti's L'alba separa della luce l'ombra, in which the elegance of melody and harmony foreshadows Puccini. The entire project is remarkable--the performers clearly love this music and perform it with joy.

Sentimento is another Beautiful CD by my favorite singer Andrea Bocelli. This CD is basically a Duet between Andrea's beautiful Voice and The masterful Violin of Lorin Maazel; and is a through back to the early 1900s when the Violin/tender duet was in vogue. I think this CD will bring it back into vouge today. Andrea and Lorin picked out a wonderful selection of Song's and my favorites are En Aranjez con tu amor; Mattinata; Songno D'amore; La Danza; Plaisir D'amour; Oh heck I love em all. This is a must get CD for anyone who loves beautiful singing; Beautiful Violin Playing; or BOTH.

I bought "Sentimento" as soon as it was released. I'm glad I did. This is the best album Bocelli has had in a while. it is much better than "Cieli di Toscana". The songs here are wonderfully suited to Andrea's warm,rich voice and as always, Lorin Maazel's violin accompaniment is excellent. I'm not a musician but I know what I like to hear and this is it. I don't think this CD is quite as good as "Sogno" but it's close. The selection of songs is very interesting with some familiar pieces among all the new (for me) works. I really like the words Andrea wrote for Sogno d'amore.This is a wonderful way to relax after a hard day at work.

What's not to love about this CD?It is obvious that AB has been working on the voice.These "old fashioned"arrangements take me back to the times I listened to my Granny's 78's.They were beautiful then,they are beautiful now.Bocelli's voice is suited to the music,and Maestro Maazel's violin provides the utmost in playing against the voice.There are no bad trax on this CD.Each one speaks/sings for itself.I did my Christmas shopping immediately after hearing Sentimento.I was going to purchase Sacred Arias,which is unique in it's own way,but this .......you can sit and listen and listen ,etc.Bocelli sings in Spanish,in French,in Italian and the diction is so clean.No mush mouth here.I hope this CD will get the great reviews it deserves.Mr.Bocelli has done much to bring back beautiful music to the world in the past five years.He deserves the credit.Now we hear Rod Stewart singing old classics and Domingo singing with Santana.Music is music and this is as good as it gets.My favorites on this CD would probably be Bacarolle,Occhi di Fata,and Plasir de Amour.Must stop,or I'll name them all.Try it,you'll love it. Romantic it is,but what's wrong with romance and beauty? I say,more,more,more!!!!!!

this cd is probably one of Andreas best! take it from me i am a 16 yr old whose punishment is to listen to moms opera. and she is a huge fan so i have to hear Andreas cds. His voice just enraptures you and takes u to a place where dreams are so real. You feel as though he is singing from ur heart that is how captivating this cd is!

One has to admit that the Opera is snobbish. Andrea is the only man who can turn that around and bring change. He puts a passion and sweetness in all he sings that I've never heard. As he puts in his heart, he gives to the heart of others. In all his arias; as you listen, it is something you find hard to explain or express but enormous joy to feel. God has blessed him not only with his voice but just "who he is" and we are the fortunate ones who benefit from his obedience. Sentimento will bring a passion for opera even if you aren't sure about that kind of music. This will change absolutely your mind. Excellent CD.

It is a pitty that in the World Maestro Andrea Bocelli is considered as a pop singer crossover to opera. Pitty, people cannot distinguish, that in our 2002 world, a Tenor as Andrea Bocelli is the new generation. He does not suffocate an orchestra. He sings, any kind of music, with the same Talent, same pursuit of beauty.Andrea Bocelli is a Tenor with an enormous culture, not only in music, and is treated by the critics of Opera, as a small voice. Andrea Bocelli never speaks of no one. Each Tenor in the world has its own characteristics. Andrea Bocelli tries to follow the composer and the Maestro, either in concert or Opera, as it should be. He is not here to show that he is the biggest Tenor on Earth. But indeed, he his. There is a place for him, for sopranos, for newcomers, for the maestro and for the musicians. Andrea Bocelli knows his role, other peoples role, the music, and the overall end performance. As he says when you sing Opera, with a big orchestra and with a public very close, you must sing as if you were singing to the hear of a child. He is not interested in showing how big or how small his voice is. The fact, he is a voice, that brings people attracted to him, by the beauty of it. In my point of view, as a fan, I allow only to The Maestros, who direct a concert or an opera are the only critics allowed to tell the public, if or if not Andrea Bocelli has a voice. I think it is of very bad taste from the purists of the Opera to find him a small voice.

Regarding the beuaity of Sentimento Record, and the high performance of the duet between Andrea Bocelli Voice and Lorin Maazel violin, gives us an exceptional record. A record, once again in homenage of the ones, that the new comers tend to forget. Music is beauty, like a rose. A rose should be forever.
It is a great record, and a record to our children, recorded in 2002. Songs were sung before by great voices. And heritage should always be left. Otherwise, these beautiful songs and poems are lost in time. I advice this record as a collector's item.

OK, the word is already out about this album, and there may not be much new that I can say about it. It is certainly going to win some big awards, and not just for its rocket-like sales records. Like many of Bocelli's other albums, this CD is sure to stay in the charts for several years, and it will be remembered even longer than that as a landmark recording in the revival of a precious genre of musical performance that had somehow gone out of style for a generation or more.

It should be emphasized that this is not just the latest in a long line of highly successful Bocelli recordings -- in which he generally includes a few unforgettable duets with guest super-stars under the invisible baton of a great conductor. No, in this case the entire album is a "duet," and Maestro Maazel's contributions as both performer and orchestrator are every bit as essential to its quality as Bocelli's rich voice.

I have been a somewhat on-again off-again fan of Bocelli since I discovered his incredible Sacred Arias album on VCD, and later on DVD, and that album led me to go back and buy his earlier albums as well. As a lover of classical music and opera, the more "popular" in style a Bocelli album is, the more I have had my reservations -- at least at first hearing.

I was delighted when his last album, Cieli Di Toscana (Tuscan Skies), was released on DVD, and I grew to like the album, but most of it was a bit too popular for my taste. These were all new songs written expressly for Bocelli, and though the album contains many beautiful songs, not all of them are going to survive the test of time. L'Abitudine, a beautiful duet with the young singer Helena, justifiably became a hit and was later released in several languages. But although "E Mi Manchi Tu" and "Resta Qui" were the first and second prize winners in the "First Premio Bocelli" international composition contest in 2000, I think the only song capable of real immortality on the album may be "Mille Lune Mille Onde."

I put Cieli aside for many months to listen to more "serious" music, and on my last hearing the album was just too sentimental -- too "soapy" -- for my taste. Thus I was very hesitant about buying another Bocelli album, especially one with a title like "Sentimento". But on a trial hearing, as soon as I heard Maazal's violin and looked through the list of composers, I thought "Ah, he's come back again to classical music. I must buy this one!" I certainly made the right decision.

While this album was actually recorded back in the autumn of 2000, apparently even before Cieli di Toscana, it is an incredible collaboration that brings out the very best of both Bocelli and Maazel. Because of Maazel's consumately warm violin playing, which developed out of obbligato parts he improvised while listening informally to Bocelli singing Tosti songs, the album is significantly different from anything that Bocelli -- and of course Maazel -- has ever recorded. It stands out above the crowd of classical and classical cross-over vocal recordings like the red rose that forms the theme of the album's packaging would stand out against a bed of ordinary garden flowers, as colorful and variegated as the other flowers may be.

I am tempted to say that this is the best classical album Bocelli has done, but it has very stiff competition from Sacred Arias and A Night in Tuscany, which come in DVD versions, and even from the opera albums, so let me content myself with saying it is among the very best work that Bocelli has done, and stands in a class by itself. The fact that the album includes outstanding renditions of some of the most "popular" classical songs ever written -- tracks 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9 and 12 -- should ensure that lovers of Bocelli's pop albums will also be delighted with this album, and that they will be drawn deeper into the richness of the classical repertory in the process.

If anyone wants to test the album out and get a full taste of the unique style these two great musicians have forged together, listen to tracks 14 to 17. Bocelli's voice is at its historic best in these numbers, devoid of the slightest trace of imperfection or strain, and Maazel complements that voice with some of the most intoxicatingly romantic violin playing I have ever heard.

This is a great album for listening to alone, but it becomes even more beautiful if one can share it will someone special. Anyone looking for an ideal Valentine's Day gift should order this CD today!

This is a unique and charming album which revives a nineteenth century art form of combining tenor with violin. The songs were mostly written in the late 1800s and early 1900s, too, and speak of all aspects of love--its passion, its yearning, its loss. It is indeed a treat to hear the rich, full, and sometimes tender voice of Andrea Bocelli along with the lush strains of Loren Maazel's violin. The combination evokes a sensual, romantic sound--music to dream on!

Ah, romance! Sweet, stirring violins, Bocelli's beautiful voice soaring effortlessly as he holds note after note to perfection... Sentimento is a wonderfully realized collection of romantic arias that sweeps us along into that mystical place we all need to be at times, a place of beauty and timelessness, where romance and sentiment seem ever so right and where the cares and worries of the world are nudged ever so gently into the background. If you have a heart of stone, you might not like this one, but to the rest of us, this is a work of art.