Wednesday 14 December 2022

The Swingle Singers, J S Bach Fugue in D Major


When I was at school it was stated in no uncertain terms that much of our education would concentrate on Classics, Cricket, and Christianity; known as the three C's. I think this says more about our blinkered Headmaster than our actual education.

The other important subject was Music. The playing of, singing of, and studying of which occupied much of our time. I am still eternally grateful that I was introduced to the works of Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Dvorjak, and of course J S Bach.

I suppose as a young whipper-snapper I was bound to like The Swingle Singers, and their interpretations of Bach. I even bought their album. The group was formed in 1962 in Paris, and I believe has continued in one form or another ever since.

Here they are with Bach's Fugue in D. Every time I listen to it I become 15 years old again.


18 comments:

  1. A wonderful sound though I have no idea what the lyrics mean or even which language they were singing in. Was it Moldovan?

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    1. Gie ower lad! Yorkshire lasses dunna stand like them scarecrows. They have their legs a-Kimbo! (See what I did there!)

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  2. I'm glad I never had to learn to sing that! My tongue would be in knots!
    We learned dumb things like the names and years of all the kings and queens of England in primary school and there certainly wasn't any classical music studying. Not that I would have paid much attention. We preferred the "Top 40" on the radio. I think classical music was taught in the higher education, like universities, not even in high school here. (1960s) I could be wrong on that, and maybe by now things have changed, but I have no interest in finding out.

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  3. But did you also learn things like English, Math, History etc?

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    1. Yes, but they were taken for granted. My school was connected to a cathedral so music in all its forms was seen as very important.

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  4. I also had their record, a vinyl record. There was no television here in those years and I had no idea what they looked like. Now I saw them for the first time. I remember the music well.

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    1. Yes, I had no idea what they looked like either, there was no photo of them on the album cover.

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  5. I think I remember this type of singing being used in Roman Polanski's Vampire Killers. Not my thing at all.

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  6. I didn't know anything about classical music until I went to High School and a different piece was played every morning in assembly. Until then I had only ever listened to pop music.

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    1. I was much the same, I only started learning at 14.

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  7. They were often the victim of "send ups" on comedy shows of the era. I remember them well and thought of them as a joke. I was about 10 at the time. I find today I still think of them the same.

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    1. I used to sing choral music, madrigals, etc, so can appreciate the complexity of the tunes. Not everyone's cup of tea I know; not really mine these days either.

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  8. Studying the classics is all important. As for the Swingers Singers, I had difficulty understanding the words and the melody was a bit more complex/blended for my taste in music.

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    1. They are the classical version of jazz 'scat' singers; no words just sounds.

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  9. The music of JS Bach is so wonderfully crafted that it lends itself to being transcribed and "deranged" (as I call my own arranging) in multiple different styles. I can see Rachel's point regarding the comical side of the Swingle performances, even though they are technically very fine performances but each to their own. I once met Ward Swingle at a music course some years ago. He come across to me as rather too serious, or perhaps taking himself too seriously. He felt that one of the rehearsals of some of his arrangements were going rather less than perfectly and he refused to allow the group to perform the pieces and stomped off. Perhaps the Jacques Loussier Bach arrangements from a similar time have a much reduced "titter" factor.

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    1. I'd always thought that there was some humour in what they did, maybe that was unintentional.

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