Walton: Façade

 

I will admit I am a little obsessed with narration and music. I have found not many share my enthusiasm for this genre, but I suppose it matters not.  

Sir William Walton's Façade is a sort of early-20th Century performance art. Edith Sitwell wrote pithy and nonsensical rhyming verse which is spoken in time to music composed by William Walton. I especially love the British drawl of Sitwell herself on this recording, a vocal styling which contrasts well with Peter Pears' piping tenor.

I am no lover of mono recordings, but this one sounds out well enough during Façade, easily making room for spoken word and an extended chamber ensemble led by Anthony Collins. Where the mono really bothers me is in the short orchestral works which follow. There is much congestion in the orchestral sound, and there are many stereo recordings of these Walton, Bax, and Bliss miniatures to enjoy elsewhere.

A review from 2019

Australia’s Decca Eloquence presents a host of music by William Walton and single marches by Arnold Bax and Arthur Bliss featuring classic performances from the 50’s of orchestras around London led by conductors Anthony Collins, Sir Adrian Boult, Sir Malcolm Sargent, and Sir Arthur Bliss.

The flagship composition of the disc is Edith Sitwell’s bit of eccentric performance art, Façade, a marriage of spoken word and instrumental music, in this case, a small chamber ensemble of winds and percussion / jazz ensemble in the form of the English Opera Group Ensemble providing rhythmic emphasis to Sitwell’s onomatopoeically rhyming verse that is geared more towards sound utterances rather than storytelling. Walton’s sparse, but often jazzy instrumental music is vivid and witty, but really takes a backseat to the narrators, one reason he made so many orchestral Suites of this music found elsewhere.

This 1953 recording features a mid-sixty-year old Edith Sitwell, who had been performing these works since the 1920’s, and is joined here by the musical Peter Pears on a few of the more rhythmically swift settings. Sitwell’s authoritative readings are a joy, her voice of a low-toned aging, aristocratic dowager whose life was dedicated to the written word, confidently traversing her cheeky lexicon that comes across so wry for her voice style; Sitwell avoids the theatricality of the numerous recordings that have followed over the last 60 years, putting the sole focus on her words in her singular syrupy English elocution that stands surprisingly close to Sprechstimme. Peter Pears, whose fluting, Baroque timbre is often criticized in his singing, gives a spry, twinkling reading that is unusually clear-eyed, if not a bit one-note once he gets going. The work as a whole is an eccentric romp, few works compare easily to this style, but it is entertaining and Pears and Sitwell’s performance is hard to beat. Lest I forget, this is an excellently colourful mono recording, with Sitwell and Pears heard up close with great detail, Sitwell only rarely competing against the instruments in her timbre, and the background winds and percussion get an amazing amount of depth and clarity for the recordings age and source; an easy first choice performance of Façade!

As to the rest of the music, Boult leads the evocative Siesta, a comedic Scapino overture, and a brawny and bustling Portsmouth Point overture from a 1955 performance. The sound is a bit more pinched and congested compared to Façade, Scapino’s loud upper registers and tambourine clashing in the older sound, but despite that, Boult gives the music a ton of energy, my favourite of the trio Portsmouth Point unusually burly and epic, but Siesta leaving me yearning for a clearer soundscape. Sir Malcolm Sargent’s sound with the LSO is a smidgen better, with less harsh brass and percussion in Orb and Sceptre and Bax’s Coronation March, but Sargent is not as impetuous as Boult, showing instead the grandness of these English compositions in sweeping performances. Only Arthur Bliss’ 1959 Welcome the Queen, led by Bliss himself, is truly sonically satisfying from a modern perspective in these instrumental works, caught with a nice stereo spread and whipping his own music into a pompous fervor. All of Walton’s (Bax and Bliss included) instrumental works are easy on the ears with fine melody writing and dramatic orchestrations and easily recommended for excellent performances, albeit in older sound. Not that I don’t like the Bax and Bliss, but it would have been nice to have a true William Walton compilation with Crown Imperial, Spitfire, or Johannesburg to fill out the program, but what is here is good.

Despite the physical media not included any texts, this performance of Façade is the best place to start for the quirky composition, if nothing else than for its authoritative performances by Sitwell herself and Peter Pears. The sound quality on Decca Eloquence is excellent in Façade, and although the classic Boult and Sargent performing the instrumental works is older sounding, the performances are direct and energetic, and Bliss’ stereo account sounds very good. This Façade performance can also be found on Alto with different pairings, and Walton’s instrumental works were covered exhaustively on Chandos and a later recording by Sir Charles Groves on EMI. Regardless, this recording comes enthusiastically recommended for its Façade performance, but overall a four-star recommendation for the entire album.

Works
William Walton
   Façade
   Siesta
   Scapino
   Portsmouth Point
   Orb and Sceptre
Arnold Bax
   Coronation March
Arthur Bliss
   Welcome the Queen

Soloists
Dame Edith Sitwell, narrator
Peter Pears, narrator

Ensembles
English Opera Group Ensemble
  Anthony Collins, conductor
London Philharmonic Orchestra
  Sir Adrian Boult, conductor
London Symphony Orchestra
  Sir Malcolm Sargent, conductor
  Sir Arthur Bliss, conductor

Label: Decca Eloquence
Year: 1953-59; 2010
Total Timing: 77.24

 

I am here for Façade, and that is where this recording is at its best. Having Dame Edith Sitwell reading her own poetry is an absolute treasure.

The rest of the program is led by such podium luminaries as Sir Adrian Boult, Sir Malcolm Sargent, and Sir Arthur Bliss. Unfortunately, the mono sonics in these other orchestral works don't make listening easy.

 

 

 

 

Find more Walton recordings HERE!