Album information

Barcelona is an album recorded by Freddie Mercury, the front-man of the popular British rock band Queen, and operatic soprano Montserrat Caballé. The album was recorded in 1987 and 1988, and released in 1988. It is the final solo album recorded by Mercury, who died of AIDS on November 24, 1991.

After Barcelona was selected to be the next Olympic city, Freddie was approached to write a song as a theme for the forthcoming games. The idea was to create a duet with Montserrat, as she is from the city. Freddie had been a long standing admirer of Montserrat and she in turn grew to respect his talents very highly. They soon decided to work on an album together, with Mercury and Mike Moran taking the creative lead as songwriters. Freddie and Mike made and sent her tapes of the music with Freddie singing in falsetto as a lead vocal for Montserrat's parts. As they rarely had an opening in their schedule to meet, her parts were recorded at another location. In 2008 violinist Julia Rogers and pianist Claudio Gyuris have recorded a tribute album, a re-arrangement for both instruments called "Simply...Barcelona".

Source: Wikipedia.org