Music of the Day, 7 September 2024

a powerful crossover duet

Freddie Mercury’s birthday was a couple of days ago, and while I didn’t commemorate it this year, I suspect that it was a big part of the reason that today’s MotD came to mind.

I used to be a bigger fan of opera than I am now; much of that is likely due to not listening to the radio, especially a good classical music station. While in grad school, I was fortunate enough to attend a performance staged by Opera Columbus, which was amazing and took the shine off of recordings.

But I was never enough of a fan to know many stars’ names, which is why I foolishly thought that Freddie was the bigger star when I first heard this now legendary duet.

Most people probably know Montserrat Caballé and Freddie Mercury’s duet “Barcelona” from its use in the 1992 Summer Olympic Games, but it is actually the title track of a 1988 album of original music by the two. The album grew out of a plan for Mercury to write a theme song for the Games and to perform it with Caballé, who was born in Barcelona.

Almost better than the spectacular music is watching Caballé and Mercury sing together. Both were towering vocalists in their fields and surely had healthy egos, yet the mutual admiration and respect is evident throughout the song. I get shivers every time I hear it.

And I’ll be listening to other tracks from the album soon, to get a better sense of the scope of their collaboration. If you have recommendations for other unlikely musical pairings that led to great results, please share in a comment.