Available complete for the first time, the vocal chamber output of a born songsmith, a composer to royalty and among the most talented entertainers of the Victorian era.

Paolo Tosti (1846-1916) worked in poverty as a music teacher until he met the influential composer Giovanni Sgambati, who became his mentor. He introduced Tosti to Princess Margherita of Savoy, who became later Queen of Italy. She was impressed by him and appointed him as royal music teacher. In 1875 Tosti went to London where his fame spread, and he was made Singing Master of the Royal Family. Tosti preferred to set the popular poets of his day, in English, French and Italian, with natural, singable melodies. Charm and suavity are Tosti’s trademark expressions. His songs swept through the parlours and salons of Europe, and Tosti became a rich man as a result. He brought the salon song to a peak of aesthetic perfection.

This project is based on 33 years of scholarship and promotion by the Istituto Nazionale Tostiano and a lifetime of studies on the part of Francesco Sanvitale, to whose memory the release is dedicated. These songs were once the repertoire of every great Italian singer from Lauri-Volpi to Bergonzi, Caruso to Gigli. Their modern successors are no less committed to pursuit of beauty and pleasure in these songs above all.

‘Tosti's Romances speak of love; the dreamy, impossible, unhappy but also happy passions of his era… We wanted to show Tosti for who he was: one of the great song composers of his age, with an international outlook… All the most intimate works of Tosti remind me of the third act of La traviata, where my interpretation of Violetta is almost scaled to chamber-size… in some of these songs I tried to find the same emotion and intimacy… These songs will touch the heart on first hearing them.’ – Desirée Rancatore