Press-Release - David Garrett

Island Records announce the release on 3rd September 2012 of a special 25th
Anniversary edition of Freddie Mercury and Montserrat Caballé’s classic ‘Barcelona’
album.
“I’m moving into opera now. Forget rock and roll”. Freddie Mercury. 1987.
25 years after the original release of the lead single, Queen singer Freddie Mercury’s
most self-defining and personal work, his ‘Barcelona’ album recorded in collaboration
with Spanish operatic soprano Montserrat Caballé, is to have a special re-release in an
entirely newly orchestrated re-working.
The special anniversary version of the album ‘Barcelona – The Special Edition’ is
released September 3, coming around what would have been the singer’s 66 th
birthday.
The original Barcelona album, named after the Spanish city who would host the
Olympics in 1992 and for which Mercury had been asked to write the theme song, was
to become the final solo work Mercury would complete.
The title was also a tribute to the home city of his beloved recording partner Montserrat
Caballé with whom Freddie was captivated and had planned to perform the title song
with at the opening of the 1992 Olympics opening ceremony. Sadly Mercury passed
away eight months before this could happen.
But the album gave Mercury a million selling record and posthumously a chart topping
single when the song Barcelona was chosen by BBC TV as its title music to its
coverage of the Olympics.

One of the most audacious, and groundbreaking musical collaborations of the 80’s,
‘Barcelona’ was for Freddie the embodiment of his long held fantasy of combining rock
and opera and realizing his dream of collaborating with the woman of whom he said
after first seeing her performing at London’s Royal Opera House in 1981, ‘I have now
heard the best voice in the world’.
Freddie had gone to the Opera House to see Luciano Pavarotti in Verdi’s ‘Un ballo in
maschera’. Freddie had heard him on record but never seen him live. However, as
impressive as Pavarotti clearly was, it was the mezzo soprano who blew Freddie away.
He was later to play his manager Jim Beach a record of Montserrat Caballé. “I wish to
record with her”, Freddie told an astonished Jim. “Please arrange it.”
Beach arranged a first meeting, at the Ritz hotel in Barcelona.
Freddie took with him pianist / arranger, Mike Moran, together with a demo recording
they had prepared for Montserrat entitled “Exercises in Free Love” which Freddie had
sung in falsetto imitating her voice. Freddie’s team had arranged for a massive PA
system to be installed in the garden at the Ritz where they met and Freddie played his
demo to Montserrat the moment she arrived. “Could I sing it next Sunday at my recital
at Covent Garden?” Montserrat asked on hearing it. They rehearsed it then and there
and the album Barcelona was born.
Nicely completing the circle between that first encounter between Freddie and
Montserrat, this new edition brings to the album for the first time as an extra track
Freddie’s original vocal performance of ‘Exercises in Free Love’ which Montserrat
heard in the garden of the Ritz and formed the seed of their collaboration.
The ‘Barcelona’ Special Edition album will be at the centre of a new groundswell of
interest in the work of the late singer who died in November 1991 and in whose
memory his birthday is now marked each year with the HIV AIDS fundraising day,
‘Freddie For A Day’.
Arriving at the same time will be a major new documentary “The Great Pretender” and
a freshly authored and illustrated book, “Freddie Mercury: The Great Pretender - A Life
in Pictures” which is released on September 3 rd (Goodman,£25).
The re-created Barcelona album is being hailed as the version Mercury would have
wanted to make at the time had he felt able to work with a full symphony orchestra
Mercury recorded his original album almost entirely on keyboards. This 2012 special
edition replaces Mercury and co-writer and producer Mike Moran’s synthesized
arrangements with a full symphonic orchestral score performed by the eighty piece
FILMharmonic Orchestra, Prague, one of the most sought after recording orchestras in
Central Europe, featuring leading members from Czech foremost orchestras (Czech
Philharmonic, Prague Symphony).
Called on to transcribe and re-orchestrate the Mercury and Montserrat Caballé tracks
which featured on the original album was arranger and music director Stuart Morley
whose connection with Queen and Mercury lie in his MD role of the band’s hit musical
We Will Rock You. Morley is at the heart of this new special edition of the album;
alongside Queen sound engineer Kris Fredriksson, Morley is also its producer.
Morley set about creating a new score by “basically listening to the album over and
over in short sections and noting down the harmonic structure, lead orchestral lines
and instrumental voicings along with the vocal lines. I then proceeded to expand into
making a full orchestral score (with a 2B pencil, ruler and erases –the old fashioned
way) working at the piano and constantly referring back to the original recordings to

make sure the work I was doing remained faithful to Freddie and Mike Moran’s original
intentions.”
Morley also cites as important references along the way: “Rimsky Korsakov's treatise
on orchestration as well as various orchestral scores including Tchaikovsky's 4th
symphony, Scheherzade and Dubussy's La Mer. It was important to me,” he says,
“that the re-orchestration was constructed and voiced in an authentic classical style
whilst remaining faithful to the sound world of the original album.”
After months at the pencil and eraser, Morley arrived at the first day of recording in
Prague. “I remember feeling a mixture of nerves and excitement when I made the short
walk from the hotel to the studio. Hearing just over 80 people tune up before striking
the first notes when the conductor gives their first downbeat is always slightly nerve
racking for an arranger, but these feeling were amplified ten-fold because of my
knowledge, respect and admiration of the original album and its creators.
“I'll never forget the wave of emotion that hit me later on that day when I was handed
the headphones while we were recording one of the tutti sections from ‘The Fallen
Priest’ (which was incidentally the biggest and most challenging orchestration to
complete) and I felt the sheer power of the orchestra giving it their all, with Freddie and
Montserrat soaring over the top of it. That was the moment I knew that we were a part
of something really special.”
In addition to the orchestral score performed by the Prague FILMharmonic Orchestra,
other live instruments have been added for the first time. Naoko Kikuchi, one of the few
koto players in the western world, flew especially to London to add the ancient oriental
instrument to ‘La Japonaise’. Rufus Taylor, Queen band member Roger Taylor’s son,
has replaced the drum machines on ‘The Golden Boy’ and ‘How Can Go On’ with live
percussion. The latter song also boasts a new violin solo from classical violinist David
Garrett joining Queen’s John Deacon’s original bass part.
‘Barcelona - The Special Edition’ is finally the album it should have been. The world will
undoubtedly rediscover and fall in love with it all over again. The only downside is that
the visionary behind this masterpiece is sadly not around to hear it too.
The album will be available in CD & Deluxe CD and Digital formats to include bonus
audio and DVD extras. See track listings.
‘Barcelona- The Special Edition’ album release is accompanied by a brand new
TV/DVD documentary ‘The Great Pretender’ (Eagle Rock) focusing on Freddie’s solo
career and life outside Queen produced and directed by Rhys Thomas. The
documentary features never-before-seen footage of Freddie, including hilarious and
emotional interviews re-discovered in the Queen archives for the first time recently.
‘The Great Pretender’ is released on DVD & Blu-ray on September 24.
The illustrated book ‘Freddie Mercury The Great Pretender: A Life In Pictures’
(Goodman) containing captivating shots of Freddie and revealing the many sides of his
colourful life is published September 5. The book package also includes additional CD
of a rare interview by Mary Turner in which Freddie candidly discusses his life of
stardom.
www.freddiemercury.com www.freddieforaday.com
BARCELONA FORMATS

CD & Deluxe CD and Digital
BARCELONA – THE SPECIAL EDITION
NEW ORCHESTRATED ALBUM
1. Barcelona
2. La Japonaise
3. The Fallen Priest
4. Ensueno
5. The Golden Boy
6. Guide Me Home
7. How Can I Go On
8. Exercises In Free Love
9. Overture Piccante
Bonus Track
10. How Can I Go On Feat. David Garrett
DELUXE ALBUM – 3 CD DISCS & 1 DVD
Disc 1 – Barcelona – The Special Edition – New Orchestrated album
1. Barcelona
2. La Japonaise
3. The Fallen Priest
4. Ensueno
5. The Golden Boy
6. Guide Me Home
7. How Can I Go On
8. Exercises In Free Love
9. Overture Piccante
Bonus Track
10. How Can I Go On Feat. David Garrett
Disc 2: The Best of the Rarities & Session Out-takes
1. Exercises In Free Love (1987 B-side)
2. Barcelona (Early Version: Freddie's Demo Vocal)
3. La Japonaise (Early Version: Freddie's Demo Vocal)
4. Rachmaninov's Revenge (The Fallen Priest) (Later Version: Freddie's Demo Vocal)
5. Ensueno - Monsterrat's Live Takes
6.The Golden Boy (Early Version: Freddie's Demo Vocal)
7.Guide Me Home / How Can I Go On (Alternative Versions)
8.How Can I Go On (Alternative Piano Version)
Disc 3: – DVD Disc
1.Ku Club Ibiza Performance – Barcelona
2. La Nit Barcelona Performance - Barcelona (5m46s)
How Can I Go On (3m58s)
The Golden Boy (5m58s)
3. Barcelona – Classic Video 4m25s
4. Barcelona – The Special Edition EPK
5. Barcelona – 2012 edit by Rhys Thomas 4m49s

Disc 4: – Barcelona – The Special Edition Album Orchestral Version
BARCELONA – The Special Edition
Credits (edited):
Orchestrations by Stuart Morley.
Based on the original arrangements by Mike Moran and Freddie Mercury.
FILMharmonic Orchestra, Prague.
Conducted by Adam Klemens.
Music Contractor: Petr Pycha.
except ‘Exercises In Free Love’ Conducted by Stuart Morley.
Produced by Kris Fredriksson and Stuart Morley.
Original production by Freddie Mercury, Mike Moran and David Richards, except
‘Exercises In Free Love’ original production by Mike Moran.
All songs written and composed by Freddie Mercury and Mike Moran except lyrics on
‘Ensueño’ by Montserrat Caballé and lyrics on ‘The Fallen Priest’ and ‘The Golden Boy’
by Tim Rice.
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