Barcelona

Freddie Mercury, Montserrat Caballe - Barcelona

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Category: Music CD
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CD Details

Artist: Freddie Mercury, Montserrat Caballe
Edition: Music CD
CD Release Date: 1992-07-14
Music Label: Hollywood Records
Soundtracks:

Barcelona
La Japonaise
The Fallen Priest
Ensueno
The Golden Boy
Guide Me Home
How Can I Go On
Overture Piccante

Music reviews of Barcelona

Music Review: "I'm moving into opera now. Forget rock n roll dear!!"
Rating: 5 Stars

Freddie Mercury was not an average rock star. Quite to the contrary, unlike many of his contemporaries, he was an avid Opera fan, ballet connoisseur and not just the Queen frontman. So perhaps only Mercury could get away with pairing himself with one of the world's great singers, Montserrat Caballe. The first thing to realise about this album is that it is nothing to do with Queen. Although two of the members are featured on this album (John Deacon adds bass to "How Can I Go On") the music is mainly mastered by the wonderful Mike Moran-whose Piano skills are invaluable to the way this album sounds. Barcelona was the first piece that these two great divas recorded together, and the response it got motivated them to record an entire album together. Now re-mastered, it loses none of its magic. The opening pompous hymn to the Spanish town is as majestic as ever, but as so often on Queen/Mercury albums, you have to go deeper to find the real class. The familiarity of La Japonaise-coupled with its haunting surprise element leaves little to be desired. Listen out carefully for Moran's piano work on "The Fallen Priest"-the tour de force of the album. Originally titled "Rachmaninov's Revenge (We are Mortal)" this song is a complex and intricate work. The orchestration is perfect, the vocal lines superb, and it is probably the most "Rock-Opera" song on the album. For instance, Ensueno and La Japonaise are very Opera orientated, whereas Guide Me Home and How Can I Go On are more "Queen" in their style. The other masterpiece of creation is "The Golden Boy"-an operatic aria extraordinaire complete with gospel choir. It is these two which really show the versatility of not just Freddie Mercury, but also his diva companion. How many other classically trained Opera singers sing love songs with gospel choirs? However, the album-for all its brilliance, is not perfect. It is easy to find Montserrat's section in "How Can I Go On" a bridge too far for her-the song does not really lend itself to Opera at all-it might have been better placed on a Queen album, which was the fate of "Africa by Night" which appeared on Queen's Innuendo album as "All God's People". Parts of La Japonaise sound a little bit under-produced and certain parts suffer from a certain amount of predictability, and Overture Piccante (despite being one of my favourite tracks!) is actually little more than a prologue to the album, stringing together bits and pieces. Do look out for "When This Tired Old Body Wants To Sing" which comes in two-thirds of the way through "Overture" after the Golden Boy excerpt. This jam track, with Mike Moran on Piano is a joy to behold-perhaps they should even have made it longer! However, the lasting impression is good. One could feel inspired by Mercury's brave face on his illness, or perhaps (and more aptly) at the sheer versatility of his voice-spanning two and a half octaves throughout this album more than competently-the genius of the arrangements (who would ever think of reversing an earlier part of the song to produce an entirely new melody? Look out for it in "The Fallen Priest") and the fantastic piano work of Mike Moran, not to mention Caballe's beautiful voice, soaring with Mercury's above the orchestra in what can only be termed a work of pure genius. The Barcelona album showed everything that is good about Freddie Mercury, and so it must be worth buying for that alone.

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