Customer Reviews

Les Romantiques / Swingling Telemann [Box Set]

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

"Les Romantiques" (or "Getting Romantic" in the US) and "Swingling Telemann" ("Rococo A Go Go" in the US) were respectively the Swingle Singers' fourth and fifth albums, from 1965 and 1966. They followed the chart-making "Jazz Sébastien Bach" from 1963 ("Bach's Greatest Hits" in the US; there was a sequel in 1968, "Jazz Sebastien Bach volume 2/"Back to Bach"), "Going Baroque" in 1964 and "Swinging Mozart/Anyone for Mozart" in 1965.

I've posted detailed reviews of the two albums under their individual entries: Getting Romantic and Swingling Telemann. In capsule, the music is great, making the habit of the Swingle Singers to do only snippets and short excerpts but rarely complete works all the more frustrating, frustration compounded by the disappointingly short timings of the CDs. These albums were short even for LPs: hardly over 30 minutes. But in CD era? Philips/Universal could have easily published two on a single CD; in fact, it is what Polygram did in the early 1990s with the two Bach albums (reissued on Jazz Sebastian Bach) and the "Going Baroque" and Mozart albums (Anyone For Mozart, Bach, Handel, Vivaldi?).

But no, obviously they thought they could milk the cows here. I simply don't get the point of these "original jacket collection" type of reissues. What's the appeal? Getting the glands of nostalgia of an older generation of listeners to salivate? The problem with that is that, the more we go, the less there will be of that older generation to buy those CDs. And there aren't even thorough liner notes from the original LPs that would justify the LP derivation, just short promotional blurbs.

The missing star in my rating reflects my frustration with the timings. So find the box (it's not a box in fact but an open-ended cardboard holder with the two CDs) priced accordingly.

Note that all the albums of the Paris-based Swingle Singers, recorded between 1963 and 1972, 11 discs in all, were gathered in a box, Best of, not offered at the time of writing but available on the European sister companies.