Tag Archives: Serenata

Alfie Boe Best Live Song 2017: No. 7

Number seven in our countdown to find your favourite Alfie Boe live song leads us into the world of classical music once again and is our first and only entry from Serenata:

It is of course the glorious Addio Sogni Di Gloria from Classic FM Live 2014 – I was lucky enough to be there and Alfie blew the audience away.  Magnificent – anyone who was there lives in eternal hope that they’re lucky enough to hear it live again.

The song was voted in at number three in the 2016 poll and number five in this year’s best recorded song poll, although two years ago it reached the top.

 

Alfie Boe 4th Annual Best Ever Song: No. 5

We have arrived at the half way stage of the fourth annual Alfie Boe best ever song poll and number five is a song that, having reached the top of this poll in 2015, missed the top ten altogether last year.  I’m of course talking about Addio Sogni Di Gloria:

From the 2015 album, Serenata, this song showcases Alfie’s glorious voice to perfection – one day I hope to hear him sing it again.

The song was originally recorded by Italian singer Luciano Virgili and written by Italian Carlo Innocenzi who wrote music for many Italian films from the 1940’s onward.  Translated, the title means Goodbye, Dreams of Glory and the poignancy of the song sits effortlessly against the glorious soaring melody.  The version I’ve chosen is by Giuseppe Di Stefano, whom Alfie has referenced as being a favourite of his in several interviews.  Not having listened to Di Stefano before I heard Alfie talk about him, I’ve now listened to a fair amount of his work and I have to agree with Alfie – Di Stefano has a wonderful voice:

Serenata is available here:

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Alfie Boe 4th Annual Best Ever Song: The Top Ten

Voting has now closed in the 2017 Best Ever Alfie Boe song poll and the following playlist contains the top ten:

 

In 2016, the top ten looked like this:

1 – Love Reign O’er Me
2 – Dimming of the Day
3 – Trust
4 – Bring Him Home
5 – First Time Ever I Saw Your Face
6 – My Heart is Yours
7 – It’s Over
8 – A Living Prayer
9 – If You Go Away
10 – Forever Young

The first thing that strikes me about this year’s list is that there is only one song from Alfie’s most successful commercial album, Together – whether this has anything to do with it not being a solo album, I couldn’t say.

In contrast to previous years, Bring Him Home is now the only song to feature in every top ten, with just two more songs featuring in two top ten countdowns.  In addition to Anthem, there are two more new entries in Wheels of a Dream and In My Daughter’s Eyes.  This means that for the first time, A Living Prayer drops out of the top ten.

Last year we saw a definite move away from Alfie’s classical repertoire towards the rockier albums and 2017 continues in the same vein, albeit this time we are seeing a resurgence in the musical theatre songs.  I can definitely see the influence of Together in these choices – it seems that hearing Alfie sing a lot of musical theatre songs in recent months, as well as his appearance in Carousel has prompted more votes for this genre of music.  Trust remains the strongest album over all the polls so far, with Alfie having two tracks and one each for Bring Him Home, Classic Quadrophenia, Storyteller, Serenata, Together and La Passione.

Stay tuned for next week’s reveal of number 10 – we’ll be counting down until the beginning of the summer tour!

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Happy Valentine’s Day 2017 Alfie Boe Fans!

Whether or not you have anyone to share Valentine’s Day with, here is a little treat just for you:

This topped Alfie Boe’s Guide to Romance in 2014, or it would have done if Serenata songs were not taken into consideration!  For a really romantic evening with Alfie, Love Was A Dream just can’t be beaten in my opinion but sadly, these songs have never really featured in Alfie’s live repertoire.  I’m still dreaming that they’ll make a come back one day though.

I have another treat for you too – you may have heard that February 9th is now Alfie Boe day – now I know that everyday is Alfie Boe day for all of you – in Utah.  Here is Alfie singing in the Utah senate last week:

Beautiful – and beautiful words of introduction too.

Love Was A Dream is available here:

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Alfie Boe 3rd Annual Best Ever Song: No. 6

The song in at number six is this year’s only offering from Alfie’s last album, Serenata; in 2015 My Heart is Yours entered the top ten at number seven.  The music is from the film, Il Postino and it is the only song for which Alfie himself wrote the lyrics.  Can we say it’s great to see an original song make the list?  A semi original song as the film version is instrumental.  The video is from the first night of the Serenata tour, thanks to Linda W for sharing:

Alfie says the inspiration behind the lyrics is his daughter, Grace, and since I heard this, I always think of my son when I hear this song.  Having said that, the lyrics are also incredibly romantic and I’m sure there are a fair few ladies out there who imagine these words being sung to them.  Wouldn’t this be a lovely wedding song?

Serenata is available here:

serenata

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On This Day, 23 September 2014, Alfie Boe Sang…

…at Classic FM Live (thanks Marcia for sharing):

As befits a radio station, this performance at the Royal Albert Hall was never broadcast for TV so we only have sound…but what sound!

Addio Sogni Di Gloria was chosen as your favourite Alfie Boe song in 2015 (not even making the top ten this time around) and the second song, Chitarra Romana was also from the album Alfie was promoting at that time, Serenata.

Serenata is available here, if you don’t yet have it:

serenata

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Alfie Boe 3rd Annual Best Ever Song Poll: The Top Ten

Voting has now closed in the third annual poll to find the fan’s favourite Alfie Boe song (recorded) and the top ten is in a handy playlist for you:

There are just four songs that survived from the 2014 poll and of these four, just two have been voted into the top ten in all three polls so far.

In 2015, the top ten looked like this:

  1. Addio Sogni Di Gloria
  2. Keep Me In Your Heart
  3. A Gaelic Blessing
  4. Bring Him Home
  5. A Living Prayer
  6. Nessun Dorma
  7. My Heart is Yours
  8. Rank Strangers
  9. Forever Young
  10. Je Crois Entendre Encore

The first thing that jumps out is that the top two don’t even feature this time which means my favourite song isn’t there…although another favourite, Dimming of the Day has made it for the first time.

The second thing to note is that there is a distinct move away from the more classical side of Alfie’s repertoire, as Trust makes a strong return with four songs featured.   The remaining six songs are one each from Storyteller, Serenata, Onward, Classic Quadrophenia, Bring Him Home and Alfie.  If You Go Away is the only song to return to the top ten, having missed out in 2015 and Bring Him Home stays as the only musical theatre choice.

The top ten will start counting down from next week and will lead us right up to the start of the UK tour – anyone excited yet?

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Alfie Boe’s Best Live Song 2016: 4 to 3

We have reached numbers three and four in our search to find the fans favourite Alfie Boe Live Song 2016 and number four is a song first heard back in 2012 and recorded for the Storyteller album of that year.  The version chosen here though is from the encore of the Storyteller tour of 2013, Rank Strangers (thanks Nikki for sharing):

The song, which was voted in at number eight last year’s Best Recorded Song poll, is an American folk song from the early twentieth century written by Albert Brumley, a musician and singer born in Oklahoma in 1905.  After studying at the Hartford Musical Institute, Arkansas,  Brumley toured with the Hartford Quartet and went on to write / copyright an astonishing 800 songs.  The most famous of these is I’ll Fly Away from 1932.  In 1970 he was inducted into the Country Song Writer’s Hall of Fame and his songs have been covered by amongst others, Bob Dylan, who I’m sure introduced Alfie to the song.  Click here to see the version by The Stanley Brothers from the 1950’s.   I have to confess though, to a liking for a different version, featuring the much loved Al Vosper, Toby Chapman and co (thanks Linda for sharing) from a meltingly hot (in more ways than one) Buxton Opera House:

Completely different to number four is a new entry to the Best Live Song top ten, Addio Sogni Di Gloria from Classic FM Live (thanks Marcia for sharing):

The song was originally recorded by Italian singer Luciano Virgili and written by Italian Carlo Innocenzi who wrote music for many Italian films from the 1940’s onward.  Translated, the title means Goodbye, Dreams of Glory and the poignancy of the song sits effortlessly against the glorious soaring melody.  This wonderful song is from Serenata and was the one that unseated Bring Him Home from the top spot in the Alfie Boe 2015 best ever song poll.

Next week brings us to the top two spots in this year’s countdown.

Storyteller and Serenata are available here:

storytellercd

storyteller dvd

serenata

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Alfie Boe’s Best Live Song 2016: 8 to 7

Although we’re in the midst of full blown excitement about the Alfie Boe and Michael Ball Together Tour, we’re also counting down the fans favourite Alfie Boe Live Song.  Last week saw the publication of numbers 9 and 10, both new entries this year.

This week, we’re looking at 7 and 8.  The song voted in at number 8 is a song that made it to the top five in 2014, You Are My Heart’s Delight from Blackpool (thanks Nikki Lewis for sharing):

Oh what a magical moment that was, made all the more special by knowing Alfie’s family were in the audience that night.  Anyone familiar with Alfie story knows that You Are My Heart’s Delight is a personal favourite for him and his father, Alfred.  As well as singing it for his first D’oyly Carte audition, Alfie spent many a  Sunday lunchtime in the Boe household  listening to Alf senior’s music and Alfie  says that Richard Tauber was one of his father’s favourite singers.  Tauber became particularly well known for singing the song; indeed it comes from a 1929 operetta, The Land of Smiles, written for his voice by Franz Lehar.  Click here to see Tauber’s version.  Alfie’s English version is one my joint favourite album, Love Was A Dream.  My other favourite album is nothing like this!

Onto the next song, number 7 in the countdown which is another top five number from 2014: Buona Sera.  At that time, we had only seen Alfie sing it live at the Belfast Proms and at a charity concert in Utah earlier that year but that was before the Serenata tour when we heard it at the end of every concert:

Thanks to Linda W for sharing, this was the first concert of that tour – roll on the next one in November!

Written by Peter de Rose and Carl Sigman (Sigman also wrote the lyrics to the English version of Arrivederci Roma), most people will be familiar with the Dean Martin version.  However, the song was first recorded by Louis Prima (click here to see that version).  Prima was a big band, swing singer of the mid twentieth century and Buona Sera was one of a long line of hits.  Incidentally, Prima is the voice of King Louis in Disney’s The Jungle Book.

Love Was A Dream and Serenata are available here:

love was a dream

serenata

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Happy Alfie Boe Happiness Day!

Alright, alright, it’s actually International Happiness Day but I got the title idea from my 9yo who looked at the 2015 Happy International Day of Happiness Alfie Boe Fans and said “it’s not really Happy Alfie Boe Day is it”?  We don’t exactly see eye to eye on our musical tastes although he has been known to sing along to Alfie songs before and even uttered the immortal line (on hearing Elvis sing If I Can Dream) “this is Alfie’s song, why is Elvis singing it”.

To celebrate, these are some of my favourite Alfie tracks from each of his albums:

E Lucevan Le Stelle (Classic FM Presents) – video from first series of BBC Maestro

The song recently voted the favourite Alfie Boe recorded song, A Living Prayer (Onward) – from Songs of Praise

Funiculi Funicula (La Passione) – this was a hard choice as I could easily have chosen the whole album!

On The Street Where You Live (Bring Him Home) – from QVC, picked because my son’s choir used to sing this:

In My Daughter’s Eyes (Alfie) – for all parents and children everywhere:

Angie (Storyteller)- loved the original, this is better:

My all time favourite Alfie song (so far) is Keep Me In Your Heart (Trust) – something to do with those buttons…

Addio Sogni di Gloria (Serenata) was my favourite in the Serenata review and it hasn’t changed:

The eagle eyed amongst you will have noticed that Love Was A Dream is missing – as far as I’m aware we don’t have video of Alfie singing my favourite song from that album.  Maybe one day…

What are your songs from all Alfie’s albums?  Let us know below:

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