Today we have the album tracks ‘How Great Thou Art’, ‘The Living Years’ and ‘Ave Verum Corpus’

You can hear the clips on the site at http://www.rhydianroberts.com/music/release/o_fortuna/

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HOW GREAT THOU ART

“Everyone knows this. It’s been voted Britain’s favourite hymn, though it’s actually based on a 19thcentury Swedish poem. Because it’s so familiar, I decided to change the time signature and added some drums to give it a contemporary, and celebratory, feel.”

THE LIVING YEARS

“I really connected with the words,” says Rhydian of BA Robertson’s lyric for this 1989 chart topper by Mike and the Mechanics. The poignant song deals with the theme of a son’s regrets that he never expressed his feelings for his father, who has recently died. “My dad is alive but we’ve often had a difficult relationship,” says Rhydian, “so the words really struck a chord.”  Karl (Jenkins) created this beautiful string and harp arrangement to get away from that cheesy karaoke sound with synthesizers, so the feel is somewhere between classical and easy listening. “The words are amazing: the message is that, even if you’ve locked horns with your father throughout your life, you need to accept that we’re all different and it’s important to communicate.” Adds Rhydian: “My dad will probably cry his heart out when he hears it.”

AVE VERUM CORPUS

“This is a beautiful song, suggested by its composer Karl Jenkins, that suits my voice. I knew that Bryn Terfel had recorded it on one of his albums as a duet with Simon Keenlyside and that clinched it for me. Simon is my favourite singer and all-time singing idol, because we’re both baritones. In fact when I was growing up people sometimes called me ‘a young Simon Keenlyside’ – and you just can’t flatter me any more than that. He’s my role model.”

You can pre order the album now from the links below

Play.com

Amazon.co.uk