The Crickets - Crickets File 1961-65 - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

A dream twofer CD for Hollyphiles of both 'Chirping Crickets' and 'Buddy Holly' on one CD. Digitally remastered and sounding crystalline, this is one of the best values in rock n roll history. Just look at some of the tracks, which are among Holly'sbest.

The Crickets - The Alternative Chirping Crickets (Remastered and Remixed Collector's Edition) - An alternative to the original album - 36 remixes of 12 tracks, resuilting in improved mono, true stereo and removal of dislliked background voicals. A landmark restoration and one of the most important archival releases in recent memory, InchThe Alternative Chirping Crickets (Remastered and Remixed Collector's Edition) stands as both a tribute to Buddy Holly's genius and a technical triumph that reveals, for the first time, the pure sound that shaped rock & roll's earliest heartbeat.

The technical challenging of balancing a choir singing at full volume and a guitar, renowned for it's gentle sound, has tended to discourage composers from pairing these resources. Handled sensitively, however, the combination yields a seductive sound-world, full of mystery and imagination, tending in this trio of works to evoke a reassuring feeling of familiarity there is balance, a sense of form, awareness, and respect for a past that is renewed while it nourishes the present. At the peak of his maturity in 1959 and in a burst of creativity, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco set to music seven poems by Federico García Lorca as a cycle, Romancero Gitano Op.152. The vocal writing is limpid, capturing the colours and contrasts of Lorca's text, whether it is representing the placid flow of three rivers (Baladilla de los Tres Rios) with an incessant stream of semiquavers, or depicting Carmen's dance through the streets of Seville with an elegant and slightly grotesque InchTempo di SeguidillaInch (Baile). Everywhere, what shines through, to quote the composer, is a sense 'of the Spanish lands the parched Castile, the pale olive groves, the scent of the orange orchards in Andalusia and, along the coast, the sea which breaks at the shore with vibrations, almost, of a guitar.' Receiving their first recordings here are Nulla Sors Longa Est by Nicola Jappelli (b.1975) and Materna by Nicola Campogrande (b.1969). Jappelli's chosen text was written by the Roman philosopher Seneca, and addresses the concept of happiness, ending with a bitter reflection on human frailty. Campogrande's piece has a more positive outlook, celebrating motherhood in a commission from the guitarist on this recording, Nicolò Spera, to mark the birth of his daughter. Campogrande has set four texts - also in Latin - by the contemporary poet Marco Vacchetti, who was in turn inspired by Renaissance-era nativities p