From the New York Post, 11/14/02, reprinting article in the London Times:

ROME-- Silvio Berlusconi, the Italian Prime Minister and media
tycoon, is to release a CD of 14 original songs.

Signor Berlusconi composed the record with Mariano Apicella,
a Neopolitan entertainer who joined the prime minister's personal
staff last year.

Apicella said that Berlusconi's voice was warm and powerful,
adding that the songs were a "collaborative effort"" --- he
had mainly written the music and the Italian leader had penned
the words, which include a love song about his wife.

Berlusconi began his career in music-- as a cruise-ship crooner
and entertainer-- before going into property, business and the
media. He turned to politics for the 1994 election, forming Forza
Italia as a pro-business party of the center- right.

Apicella, who has been described as the Italian leader's "court
minstrel", first met Berlusconi while entertaining diners on the
waterfront at Naples. He sang for Berlusconi again in Portofino,
where the Prime Minister has a villa.

"He eventually suggested I should come and work for him
full time", Apicella says. "I feel I'm living a dream. I have a regular salary, my own room in his villa at Arcore, and when he
goes to Sardinia at the weekends I travel on his plane with
his staff."

Berlusconi also has a fondness for performing in public. In May
he surprised Presidents Bush and Putin at a NATO-Russia summit
near Rome by sitting at the piano and singing "I Did It My Way."

"Asked how Berlusconi-- who is also Italy's foreign minister--
found time to compose songs, Apicella said that the two of them
had "often sat up into the small hours in Sardinia. He finds
music relaxes him."