Die Singphoniker, who have been called „the German King’s Singers” by the magazine Der Spiegel, are presenting musical treasures in perfect ensemble singing: world hits by the pop duo Simon & Garfunkel.

Die Singphoniker Alfons Brandl tenor Hubert Nettinger tenor Ludwig Thomas baritone Michael Mantaj bass baritone Christian Schmidt bass Berno Scharpf bass/vocal effects

Ulrich Herkenhoff panpipes Abi von Reininghaus guitars Michael Schoene bass guitar Matthias Pilipzen drums Matthias Keller keyboards

A Tribute to Simon & Garfunkel

Simon & Garfunkel: two musical icons that have accompanied me since my teenage years. And, considering that as a musician I was brought up more in the classical tradition, they lodged themselves in my field of experience pretty early on.

Yet what does „classical“ mean anyway?! Today, pieces like Bridge Over Troubled Water, The Sound of Silence, Scarborough Fair and The Boxer have become classics of the musical repertoire on a par with Johann Sebastian Bach‘s Air, Mozart‘s Adagio (Clarinet Concerto in A major) or Orff‘s Carmina Burana, for example. They are, so to speak, the „singing messengers“ of the wild era of ‘68, and are imbued both with a need for harmony and a quite original poetic communicativeness.

„Hello darkness, my old friend / I‘ve come to talk with you again“: these first lines from The Sound of Silence were the duo‘s passport to success in their career together, which was as meteoric as it was short-lived. Their music had its roots in American folk, but mutated fairly quickly into the typical folk-rock idiom of the mid-Sixties which was linked especially to the electrification of guitar sounds. Probably triggered by the Beatles and their US television debut in 1964, a new wave seized the nation at that time. This swept many along with it, and not just stars like Bob Dylan, whose Mr. Tambourine Man was quickly given an electric „remodelling“ by a group called The Byrds. The decision-makers behind the scenes, such as Columbia producer Tom Wilson, also recognised the sign of the times and acted promptly. The fact that the front runner here turned out to be a song with the programmatic title The Sound of Silence is all part of the irony of this go-getting epoch, because when the song flopped after its release as an „unplugged version“ on Simon & Garfunkel‘s debut album (Wednesday Morning 3 A.M.), Wilson (its producer) decided to rerelease the piece in a jazzed-up version augmented with electric guitar and drums. This early „remix“ became a No. 1 hit literally overnight – and without the two singers being involved. The next No. 1 followed two years later with Mrs. Robinson. Its original title was Mrs. Roosevelt but it was renamed because at the time director Mike Nichols happened to be right in the middle of creating the perfect cinematic vehicle for it: The Graduate with Dustin Hoffman in the role of the young Benjamin Braddock who is seduced by a much older woman (Anne Bancroft). And it was this Mrs. Robinson which became a huge hit, combined on the soundtrack album with titles like Scarborough Fair, April Come She Will – which by now had become a resounding metaphor for the defiant attitudes of the young and their desire to flee reality. This was followed by the album Bookends and what was to be their final hit LP together for the time being: Bridge Over Troubled Water, which includes the ballads The Boxer, Cecilia and El Condor Pasa. In 1972 Simon & Garfunkel split in order to go their separate ways. Paul Simon ended up making his comeback with „Still crazy after all these years,“ whilst Art Garfunkel celebrated his „Breakaway“ with the solo album of the same name. In 1981 they went on tour once more together, culminating in the legendary Concert in Central Park in New York.

Even today the duo‘s best selling album remains Simon & Garfunkel‘s Greatest Hits (well over 10 million copies sold), demonstrating two things: firstly that despite their very respectable success as solo artists, in the end their secret was the unique combination of Paul Simon as singer-songwriter and Art Garfunkel as his vocal counterpart. And secondly the part played by their „original sound,“ should not be underestimated: namely that it was a quite specific aesthetic, practically inseparable from the compositions themselves and the messages in their lyrics.

For this reason, any subsequent attempt at a cover version is destined to fail miserably – despite or perhaps because of the advanced level of perfection in recording technology. This brings us back to the classics, and in a dual sense – because the conclusive justification for this album comes from the voices of the Singphoniker themselves. 20 years ago I was able to witness the founding of this ensemble at close hand, and have followed its brilliant rise ever since. It would be superfluous to list here all the prizes and awards the Singphoniker have won along the way – as classical musicians, that is, in their capacity as one of the leading soloist ensembles. (Schubert‘s complete works on 5 CDs, Michael Haydn, Rossini, Orlando di Lasso, Grieg, Strauss and Reger).

But isn‘t all that much too far removed from Simon & Garfunkel and the sensuous pleasures of their pop genre? This was precisely the special challenge: reconciling these popular classical musicians with those other two classics musicians, whose vocal capabilities – demonstrated in their live performances and recordings such as the Concert Collection – seem practically inexhaustible. Listening to a piece like Bridge Over Troubled Water as a compact vocal setting, for a start; or finding a way of rendering the latent polyphony in The Sound of Silence, The Boxer, Feelin‘ Groovy in the most direct way. Not forgetting (What a) Wonderful World, which I borrowed from Art Garfunkel‘s later solo repertoire, knowing well that he himself had already taken it from Sam Cooke. That‘s classical musicians for you!

There are also reasons why some of the arrangements stick more closely to the originals than others. An extreme example is Cecilia: here the desire for creative change has simply broken free. In a similar way with El Condor Pasa, which I unceremoniously transplanted from Peru (the origin of the traditional version) to Argentina – just to let the pan pipes overcome all those clichés, played here by so excellent a soloist as Ulrich Herkenhoff. Apropos – this was the other challenge posed by this Simon & Garfunkel album: to integrate the pan pipes as a lyric-less singer into the Singphonikers‘ sound.

And finally the pieces which call for a band right from the start: Still crazy after all these Years (already mentioned) and Crying in the Rain, which can be found on Art Garfunkel‘s 1993 album „Up ’Til Now“ (in duet with James Taylor). For this we asked a few hand-picked musicians to the studio, who in turn gave us some productive impetus. First and foremost Abi von Reininghaus, whose artistry on the guitar set many of the pieces alight in a wonderful way, as well as the idea of immortalising April Come She Will as an additional „Song without Words“ on this CD as a duet with Ulrich Herkenhoff. Another idea had been nascent much earlier: to take the universally known Scarborough Fair back to its original roots in late mediaeval England, a period which gave us traditional songs such as Greensleeves. Whilst the latter has been arranged by various madrigalists, Scarborough Fair remained a simple folksong, rediscovered in 1966 thanks to the Simon & Garfunkel album Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme though initially sung by the English folk-singer Martin Carthy. Since it was clear from the outset that there was only one person amongst the ranks of the Singphoniker who could be counted as a „late madrigalist,“ baritone Ludwig Thomas was given the job, his madrigal version of Scarborough Fair appearing just a few days later. Thus the end result was a Singphoniker album which has broadened horizons in many senses: for the initiator and producer, for all those who were involved musically and perhaps also for the odd Simon & Garfunkel fan. Yet none of this would have been possible to listen to without the ears and know-how provided by our sound mixer Ulrich Kraus.

Thanks also go to Wilfried Hiller, Andreas Weidinger, Rainer Bartesch, Bernhard Albrecht, Jim Sampson and Axel Linstädt for their competent advice and support.

I dedicate this album to my friend Klaus Kirschner.