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1 of 1- Dieter
- Member
Offline - From: Germany
- Registered: 21/11/2010
- Posts: 45
Bing sings White Christmas with Helene Fischer
Since November, 13 a newly recorded 2CD set is on market, called WEIHNACHTEN by German singer Helene Fischer. On first CD are German christmas songs, on second CD English christmas classics recorded with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. On the last one are duets with Placido Domingo, Ricky Martin, Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby.
I couldn´t listen to a full version of the Helene Fischer/ Bing Crosby duet, only 30 seconds, which listen interesting. I´m personally no fan by Helene Fischer, but she is one of the megastars in Germany, many times in hitparades, with topselling CDs, succesfull concert tours every year, TV appearences and own TV shows.
The new CD set WEIHNACHTEN is at the moment on Amazon Gemany number 1 in music.
On December, 5 follows a 140 minuites DVD WEIHNACHTEN televised on Hofburg, Vienna and I presume, that will be the Christmas TV show by Fischer, that is announced. On title list of DVD is also the duet White Christmas. I am exspecting, which way they cut Bing and Helene Fischer together.
- Richard Baker
- Moderator
Offline
- From: Kenilworth, Warwickshire, Engl
- Registered: 20/11/2010
- Posts: 1,542
Re: Bing sings White Christmas with Helene Fischer
Dieter,
It's great to see you back. You have been away too long. Don't vanish for such a long time in future, please!
I believe that the recording that you mention must be an "overdubbing" that creates an artificial duet. The one internet site that I found which seemed to have a sample told me, in German, that I was denied access.
I assume this is for territorial rights reasons, but the result is that I have not been able to sample it
This sort of thing has of course been done before, and as a general rule I do not like it. The best that can be said for the practice is that it might, sometimes, keep the names of those who could otherwise be fading from memory, before the public. But that comes at the price of distortion and misrepresentation as to what they were really like.
- Richard Baker
- Moderator
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- From: Kenilworth, Warwickshire, Engl
- Registered: 20/11/2010
- Posts: 1,542
Re: Bing sings White Christmas with Helene Fischer
I firstly have to admit that I had never heard of Helene Fischer. Having looked at the standard internet reference I see that she is in her early 30s and has had considerable success. She also has a very interesting family background.
I have listened to some recordings on the internet and she can certainly sing.
The new double CD to which Dieter has drawn attention is of Christmas songs - the first CD in German, the second in English. The English CD has some artificially created duets with Bing (on White Christmas) , Frank S (on Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas) and Placido Domingo (on What Child Is This). It is clearly an attempt, by usage of English and the names of major entertainers (and possibly also by the use of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra) to widen her appeal to English speaking audiences. I have so far only sampled a few seconds of some of the songs via German Amazon.
I am not too keen about "stealing" and altering performances of the past greats in this way but from the brief sampling I have managed I'd say it is one of the better attempts.
- Steve Fay
- Senior Member
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- From: Fulton County, Illinois, USA
- Registered: 26/5/2011
- Posts: 359
Re: Bing sings White Christmas with Helene Fischer
Despite any ethical, legal, or artistic problems we might have with particular "artificial duets," I think it has to be seen as a tribute to Bing.
- Dieter
- Member
Offline
- From: Germany
- Registered: 21/11/2010
- Posts: 45
Re: Bing sings White Christmas with Helene Fischer
Statistical counts: the Helene Fischer 2CD with the Bing "duet" was sold from November, 13, 2015 till the end of 2015 920.000 times, till January, 17, 2017 1.070.000 times and was sold very good on Christmas 2017 and 2018.
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