Composition The song was written in 2003 by the singer Francesco Boccia, and composed by Ciro "Tommy" Esposito (member of the Italian band
Il Giardino dei Semplici), with an idea to make it performed by
classical music
singers. It was performed by Boccia himself and proposed for the
Sanremo Music Festival in
2005, but it was rejected because it was considered too old-fashioned. It was also proposed to be performed by
Orietta Berti, who although praised the song, refused because she wasn't available to participate in the festival.
Carlo Conti, artistic director and main presenter of that 65th edition of the festival, was not satisfied with the first proposed song by the trio
Il Volo, According to the final voting results, Il Volo won mostly thanks to the televotes (40% of the final voting results share), receiving 56.1878% of votes, while only 22.9167% of votes by the experts jury (3rd), and 32.3333% of votes by the popular jury (2nd). As the festival was used by
Radiotelevisione italiana (RAI) to select its song and performer for the of the
Eurovision Song Contest, Il Volo became the performers for the contest. On 19 February 2015, RAI confirmed "Grande amore" as for Eurovision.
Eurovision Song Contest On 23 May 2015, the grand final of the Eurovision Song Contest was held in the
Wiener Stadthalle in
Vienna hosted by (ORF) and broadcast live throughout the continent. Since Italy was part of the "
Big Five", it automatically qualified for the final. Il Volo performed "Grande amore" as the last song in the running order. For the song to participate in the contest, it was necessary to shorten it to fit into three minutes. Al the close of voting, the song came first on televoting and third overall. It also won the
Marcel Bezençon Press Award for Best Song, awarded by the accredited international press.
Aftermath On 12 May 2022, in the
Eurovision Song Contest 2022 held in
Turin, Il Volo performed "Grande amore" as an interval act at the second semi-final. ==Personnel==