Customer Reviews

Keyboard Classics

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This must be one of the TOP Swingle Singers CDs out there: excellent vocal sound, great pieces, and hilarious parodies all come together to make this a heck of a fun ROMP to listen to.

For anyone unfamiliar with Swingle Singer's- they are a jazz vocal group from the '60s that always used to do warm ups and exercises singing bach fugues intended for keyboards. This requires the most intense focus of pitch for a singer, and incredible vocal gymnastics. They realized that singing these "Exercises" was just as profitable as their jazz, and here we are today with unique discs of instrumental classics arranged for 8 voices.

This compilation is as fun as any- the sound more homogeneous than the earlier recordings, this one might be a bit easier to listen to. I personally love the selection: classics such as Mozart's "Turkish March" and Brahms' "Hungarian Dance No. 5" are sung with beautiful precision, and later wacky or jazzy humor- and yet the listener is entirely convinced that the character that the composer intended for the piece hasn't been tampered with TOO much, merely ELABORATED on, and to very delighting extent. Other favorites on this dics are Golliwog's Cake Walk, Clair de Lune, and Moonlight Sonata.

Again, this disc is VERY enjoyable, yet for those of you who may be purists, and are skeptical of the tampering of composer's intentions: FEAR NOT- The swingle singers are sensitive musicians who create an entertaining piece out of classics without killing the oringinal idea (ex: moonlight sonata, clair de lune). You may even enjoy an new approach to these often played pieces.

For the vocalists out there- I love to listen and drool thinking of having such perfect pitch and control. It is both depressing and inspiring- you MUST own this.

Briefly - the performances are great. Entertaining, nice arrangements, spot on performances. Everything the other reviewer mentioned is accurate.

However, quite dissapointingly, the CD is under 45 minutes in length, clocking in exactly at 44 minutes, 51 seconds. Yet, the CD is full price. With 80 minute CDs, and a typical CD of decent value running on average 60 minutes, getting a 45 minute CD is unfortunate.

A nice CD to listen to, interesting to own, but it's excellent quality is diminished by it's short length, making it less valuable for the money.

I hesitated long before buying this CD, because it wasn't clear from the product info (nor the one available on the label's or the Swingle Singers' own websites) whether this was a compilation of reissues from earlier recordings, which then I'd be likely to have already, or a new recording of the Swingles' old favorites. It didn't help that the disc or the various websites do not list the personnel involved - contrary to all the other recording of the Swingles that I have (and I now have A LOT, from their first, 1963 Bach album to their 2009 "Ferris Wheels" CD). Describing it as a "compilation" (both on this entry's editorial review - which isn't an editorial review but rather a product description presumably posted by the publisher - and, it turns out, on the back cover of the disc's booklet) seemed to point to a collection of reissues, since in my mind a compilation is the gathering together of already existing materials from various sources; and the Merriam-Webster online dictionary confirms my understanding: "to compile: 1. to compose out of materials from other documents". Otherwise (I thought), they would have described it as a "collection".

On the other hand, while some of the tracks were indeed of pieces already recorded by the Swingle Singers on other discs, for some of them I couldn't find a previous trace that they had recorded them: Debussy's G****wog's Cakewalk (sorry, but another of my reviews got censored because it used the full title of Debussy's final piece from Children's Corner, and the stupid Amazon robot considered it a "profanity"; for the details, see my review of Debussy: Snowflakes Are Dancing, Prelude, etc / Tomita), Satie's Gymnopédie, the Chopin Prelude and Etude (the original, Paris-based Swingle Singers did record two Chopin Etudes in their album "Getting Romantic", and the "New Swingle Singers" did a Prelude on their album "Folio" from 1980 - originally published by Moss Music Group - but they were different ones), the first movement of Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, Brahms' Hungarian Dance No. 5.

Well, from these clues I decided to give it a try, and it turns out that it is indeed a new recording. They probably took definition 2. from the Merriam Webster: "to collect and edit into a volume". The disc is copyrighted 2002 but it was recorded earlier, because if my records are correct it was first published in 2000 on the Swingle Singers' own label, Swing CD 16, and the liner notes, written by the group's founder himself, Ward Swingle, talk about "what was started some 37 years ago": so given that the group was founded in 1962, that brings us to 1999. Since Swingle mentions in his notes two of the "current members" (because they are also arrangers of some of the tracks), Joanna Forbes and Andrew Gray, it makes clear that the lineup is either that of the previous CD, the 1999 Beatles Tribute "Ticket to Ride" (Swing CD 15, reissued by Primarily A Cappella in 2002, Ticket to Ride: A Beatles Tribute) or the next one, "Live in Japan" album from December 2000 (only second tenor is different): Ann de Renais - Joanna Forbes - Sarah Simmonds - Wendy Nieper - Andrew Gray - Michael Robinston or Richard Etson - Jeremy Sadler - Patrick Ardagh-Walter. Between 1998 (the album of film music "Screen Tested", not listed on this website but available on the UK sister company under ASIN B00005GJYM) and the Beatles album, EVERYBODY, I mean the whole eight singers, changed. Something dramatic must have happened, and I wonder what it was. But seven members had also changed between 1991 and 1993. Ah, the surface of the music may glide softly and caressingly, but the inner workings can be sometimes very turbulent.

Anyway, while I understand that, in the context of their live concerts, the Swingles should sing again and again their old standards (and especially their Bach), and all the more so given that, while the overall sound remains the same, the personnel changes constantly, one after the other or even dramatically as here, I do have qualms when it comes to recordings: not only does it involve duplications (and sometimes multiples) but, worse still, the time they spend learning the same old pieces is time NOT spent in offering us new ones. The music and music-making of the Swingle Singers are so enjoyable, it makes it frustrating beyond expression that they should record only snippets: in their now nearly 50 years of existence they have NOT found the time to do Vivaldi's complete Four Seasons (only The Spring), Bach's Goldberg Variations and complete Well-Tempered Keyboard, Mozart's complete Symphonies (only No. 40 and Kleine Nachtmusik) and Piano Sonatas (only individual movements from three, including the Turkish March represented here), no Haydn at all, Beethoven's complete Symphonies and Sonata's (just this movement from Moonlight and the finale from Violin-Piano Sonata No. 5, in the "Getting Romantic" album, Mahler's and Bruckner's complete symphonies - well, you know: the whole repertory.

So, anyway, here's the deal: track 3, Bach's Prelude in F minor (from The Well-Tempered Clavier vol. II, No. 12) and track 11, Fugue D Major from Art of Fugue (track 11 - what the track listings do not tell you is that it is Contrapunctus 9) were in the seminal "Jazz Sebastien Bach" from 1963, reissued on CD with its 1968 companion, Jazz Sebastian Bach, respectively track 4 (which mistakenly gives it the tonality of F major) and track 1.

Vivaldi's Fugue from L'Estro Harmonico op. 3/2 in Bach's transcription (track 1), Handel's Aria and Variations on "The Harmonious Blacksmith" (track 14, from the harpsichord Suite No. 5), and the Largo from Bach's Harpsichord Concerto No. 5 BWV 1056 (track 6) were in the "Going Baroque" album from 1964, reissued on CD on "Anyone For Mozart, Bach, Handel, Vivaldi?" (respectively tracks 12, 7 and 9). Largo is also on Live from Japan, recorded a few months after the present compilation, now with added vocal drums in syncopation.

If my records are straight, Ward Swingle's arrangement of Bach's Organ Fugue BWV 578, track 15 - aka the "Little Organ Fugue" - first appeared in 1968 on the album Going Baroque Operazione San Pietro, where it formed the basis of Swingle's music for the Italian film "Operazione San Pietro". It was reprised, now as an independant arrangement, in the album titled "Baroque", published by what was then CBS and by the group then designated as Swingle II, in 1976 (never reissued on CD), and again by the group returned to the original name of The Swingle Singers, in their "Live in New York '82" album (Live in New York), in their 1985 "Reflections" album (reissued on CD in a Merriam-Webster-compatible compilation, The Swingle Singers Compilation Album (Reflections & Live at Ronnie Scotts)) and in their 1991 Bach album, Bach Hits Back, licensed by Virgin in 1994 (track 20). The arrangement sung here and in 1991 is somewhat different (and richer) from the one sung live in 1982; I haven't heard those from 1976 and 1985. On the 1991 Bach album (track 14) was also tenor Jonathan Rathbone's arrangement of the "Three-Part Invention", track 8 - I have no idea why they don't call it simply Sinfonia No. 11, which is what it is, since in Bach's collection the Inventions are two-part and three-part are the Sinfonias.

Mozart's Rondo alla Turca (the famous finale from his 11th Piano Sonata) is such an obvious candidate for a Swingles arrangement, and both the arrangement and realization are so effective and winning that I'm almost surprised that they added it to their repertoire so late, but the first trace I can find of it is in their 1991 Mozart album, "A Cappella Amadeus - A Mozart Celebration" (sorry, I'm out of authorized product links, it is ASIN B000002SND), and the arrangement is not Swingle's but Jonathan Rathbone's.

Finally, Debussy's Clair de Lune (from Suite Bergamasque) is also a favorite of the Swingles, since its first appearance on the unreissued 1980 "Folio" album on Moss Music Group. They sing it also in their Live in New York in `82 and on their 1812 album from 1988/9 (licensed by Virgin in 1991, ASIN B000002SQL).

On the other hand, while the Prelude in C major, No. 1 from The Well-Tempered Clavier book 1 (track 2), was on the 1968 Bach sequel (accompanied by its ensuing Fugue), in fact what the Swingles sing here is a new arrangement by former Swingle bass Ben Parry (adding a saccharine new-age chorus accompaniment that I don't find so welcome); the interpretation is also widely different, much less urgent and more dreamy and music-box-like than in 1968.

Compared to the recordings from the 1960s by the original, Paris-based Swingle Singers, the new one has closer and more vivid presence (the difference is obviously not so great with the recordings from the late 1980s and early 1990s), but, on A-B comparison, you realize that something was lost when the reformed London Swingles decided to adopt vocal percussion rather than the "real" jazz accompanying section of drums and bass: the real percussion brings an impact and excitement that the vocal imitations can't emulate (as in the Fugue from The Art of Fugue), and the specific color of the struck metal percussion (foremost cymbals) disappears entirely. Nonetheless, interpretively, some among the new recording are as good as, or, in the case of Debussy's Clair de Lune, even better than the older (or later) ones. Clair de Lune is here beautifully sung, in a very resonant acoustic which likens it to "Cathédrale engloutie / The Engulfed Cathedral", really (the versions from 1982 and 1988/9 are drier). Both versions of the Largo from the Harpsichord Concerto are ineffably beautiful, the 1999 soprano (presumably Ann de Resnais) has no less a sensuous timbre than the one from 1964 (Jeanette Baucomont or Christiane Legrand), and the slightly slower tempo now conveys even more a feeling of abandoned sensuousness. The new version of the so-called Three-Part Invention is nearly undistinguishable from its counterpart from 1988/9. Compared to the version of the Little Organ Fugue contained in the same disc, the new one is different - more urgency in 1988/9, more insouciant playfulness here - but I can't say that one is better than the other. On the other hand Handel's Harmonious Blacksmith variations were marginally more dazzling and colorful in 1964, Mozart's Turkish March is sung with marginally more drive and energy in the 1991 Mozart album.

Among the new arrangements and recordings, Debussy's *** Cakewalk is fun, Chopin's Prelude skids into jazz midway through, Satie's Gymnopédie is atmospheric and dreamy (an apposite companion to Debussy's Clair de Lune). Brahms's Hungarian Dance No. 5 is sung with the Swingle Singers's customary sleek elegance, but a certain lack of genuine Gipsy swagger and energy. All in all, this is a good introduction to the art of the Swingle Singers, although it can't replace their seminal Bach and Mozart + baroque albums from the 1960s, to which the excellent 1991 Mozart album can be added. Another drawback is its stingy timing of 45 minutes - the albums from the 1960s were short even for LPs, never much above 30 minutes, but at least the reissues referenced here pair two of these, and the CDs from the late 1980s / early 1990s averaged circa 50+. For seasoned Swingle collectors like myself, the disc is valuable mainly for its new material rather than for the new versions of stuff already recorded previously.