Giovanni Battista Velluti (1780–1861) was one of the last of the larger-than-life castrati who had dominated operatic life in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Velluti, though, spent his career almost entirely in the Romantic era, singing the music of his day. His style of ornamentation attracted widespread admiration and set the standard for the prime donne who were emerging as the stars of their age in operas by such composers as Rossini, Bellini and Donizetti. Here the American male soprano Robert Crowe recreates Velluti’s extraordinary sound-world, in a recording that helps explain why such diverse luminaries as Stendhal, Mary Shelley and the Duke of Wellington admired Velluti as one of the most accomplished and inventive singers of his time.

• Beethoven: Variations (6) in G major on the duet 'Nel cor più non mi sento' from the opera La Molinara by Giovanni Paisiello, WoO 70
• Cramer, J B: Air Venetien, arrangé en Rondo brillant pour le Piano Forte
• Fane, J: L’amor timido
• Morlacchi: Tebaldo e Isolina
• Nicolini: Carlo Magno
• Rossini: T'abbraccio, ti stringo (from Ciro in Babilonia)
• Vellutti: Otto Variazioni sul'Tema 'Nel cor più non mi sento'
• Welsh, T: Ah can I think of days gone by?