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Sir William Walton (1902-1983)
Façade (1922)
Façade II (1979)
Façade: additional numbers (1922, 1977)
Hila Plitmann, Fred Child, Kevin Deas (narrators)
Virginia Arts Festival Chamber Players/JoAnn Falletta
rec. 2021, Joan and Macon Brock Theatre, Virginia Wesleyan University, Norfolk, USA
Texts included
NAXOS 8.574378 [54]

With Façade the nineteen year old William Walton burst upon the London musical scene. In the intervening century the music – mainly through the orchestral suites – has become comfortably familiar and the poetry of its eccentric author Edith Sitwell and the notorious premiere (“Drivel they paid to hear” is the enduring headline) has faded into a kind of memento of the Roaring Twenties and the Bright Young Things. But returning to a near-complete (not complete as the cover would have you think) performance as here it is hard not to admire Walton’s precocious brilliance and Sitwell’s literary dexterity and wit.
 
The cover of this disc announces “The Complete Façades” and furthermore the appendix of four numbers excised from the original performances [tracks 31–34] are announced as “World Premiere Recordings”. I find that a little perplexing as a very quick and easy check of a well-known and available 1993 recording by reciter Pamela Hunter and the Melologus Ensemble on the Discover label, shows that all four were included there in their instrumental/accompanied forms. Similarly the 2001 release on Hyperion with David Lloyd-Jones, Eleanor Bron, Richard Stilgoe (too many silly voices!) and Nash Ensemble did the same. Hunter went further and included a further nine poems from Sitwell’s original poetry collection that have no instrumental accompaniment. But even they are not “complete” – according to Wikipedia a further four numbers were listed in the programme of an early performance which seem to have disappeared completely.

But once one moves beyond the debate of completeness, what remains here is a very fine and enjoyable performance from JoAnn Falletta and her group of players and narrators. One thing the debate above does make clear is just how prolific Walton was when writing this work. Worth remembering that for nearly all of his composing career Walton struggled to meet deadlines and complete works so that the idea that he was able to toss off more than thirty remarkably accomplished and skilled miniatures is remarkable. For this new recording, the work is presented in three groups; tracks 1-22 are the familiar Façade – An Entertainment which is the form of the work published in 1951 and famously recorded on Decca in 1954 by Anthony Collins conducting the English Opera Group (an all-star line-up) with Edith Sitwell and Peter Pears sharing the narrator role. Tracks 23-30 are Façade II which added a further eight numbers previously excised. Finally tracks 31-34 are called Façade – Additional Numbers. To be honest the main work of twenty one poems will be enough Façade for most people with the extra numbers of interest in that they illustrate the remarkable fertility and brilliance of the creators.

The ‘main’ work has received many performances/recordings over the years. At the first performances Sitwell alone narrated the poems. By the time the BBC broadcast the work in 1930, Constant Lambert (Walton’s favourite narrator) took part alongside Sitwell and this format of contrasting voices has continued – it became the composer’s performance preference. Pamela Hunter was unusual in being the only voice on the Discover disc but I have to say she does a fine job – finding a good balance between clarity of diction, characterisation and the sly wit which inhabits most of the poems. However, there is a risk of a certain tonal monotony with just a single voice. Since then a variety of actors, singers and presenters have undertaken the role(s) on disc with a varying degree of success. I must admit that for me Peter Pears is a problem on the Decca recording. Too much of the time he struggles with the verbal convolutions of the text and it can sound – especially in the ‘patter’ songs – as if he is half a beat away from tripping up – he accents the final word of a line as though he’s been aiming for the word and that alone. Sitwell has to be heard simply as the originator of the work and her performance style is certainly unique. The score simply stipulates “voice” – no number or gender. The Hunter version must be considered ‘authentic’ since it replicates the single female voice heard at the first performances.

However, Falletta’s choice of three quite distinct voices is intelligent and effective. Hila Plitmann is the only female voice and the performer with a specifically theatrical background. She most overtly ‘characterises’ her poems and occasionally indulges in an accent so No.5 Through Gilded Trelilises is “Spanish” and No.11 By the Lake is from somewhere in Eastern Europe(!). I suspect liner writer Paul Conway had not heard the recording before writing the note where he suggests that the best performances are ‘straight’ and refrain; “from too much obtrusive characterisation, funny voices and accents...” Fred Child is a well-known radio host and presenter. He has quite a light voice and a slightly strange performing style where nearly all his lines start high within his speaking voice and drop towards the end. It gives the poems a slightly sing-song character that is certainly unusual – time will tell how it bears repetition. Bass-Baritone Kevin Deas completes the line-up and his rich resonant voice is an excellent contrast although as with many opera singers acting there is sometimes a sense that the sound is more important than the content. Two more performing choices are significant. Within one poem the spoken line is occasionally divided between more than one speaker. This makes sense when there is a clearly implied dialogue although curiously this is not consistently repeated across all the poems. Generally though the choice of who speaks which poem is well done. Likewise the actual technical articulation of these often tongue-twisting texts is very good.

There is a production choice which places the voices further back into the instrumental ensemble than on most other recordings and for sure this does have the effect of obscuring the occasional word or syllable. There is a logic for this choice as Sitwell and Walton deliberately wanted to create a performance work where the role of the speaker and the words was deliberately obscured – hence the original curtain and megaphone-type speaking device. Full texts are provided in the Naxos booklet (and online) so if an occasional word is missed they can be followed. In any case such is the blur of meaning and context in these poems that even with every word crystal-clear the listener will struggle to understand quite what Sitwell meant as the words fly by. Therein lies part of her considerable genius – the poems obscure the distinction between nonsense verse which simply revel in a riot of rhyme and assonance and something that actually has a meaning. Walton’s great skill was in finding a musical parallel to perform alongside the poems. They do not seek to illustrate or accompany in the traditional sense but act instead as a kind of independent commentary. In part this explains why the music has succeeded alone and indeed the poetry was likewise published separately. The sheer technical virtuosity of Walton’s writing is a minor marvel too from incorporating everything from Music Hall songs to direct or sly references to more ‘classical’ music sources.

Another of Walton’s remarkable achievements is the range of expression and instrumental colour he draws from the small group of six players. But this comes at the price of requiring considerable individual and collective virtuosity. I am pleased that the Virginia Arts Festival Chamber Players are given individual credits in the liner because they play very well indeed with an excellent combination of virtuosity, character and panache. Tempi are well chosen by Falletta and the music is allowed to express the necessary combination of panache, nonchalant wit and the occasional slice of expressivity as required.

For sheer verbal dexterity in the impersonal/neutral manner to which Conway alludes I am not sure anyone has done that better than Pamela Hunter. Hunter’s accompanists play very well and are well, if a little resonantly, recorded and of course this is as complete a version as currently exists. But there is the question of availability although at the point of writing this review copies do appear to be available online in the usual marketplaces at reasonable prices. Likewise the Decca/Collins/Sitwell/Pears recording now has the status of historical/archive importance whatever passing concerns there may be. That said the actual recording still sounds remarkably fine and the playing by the instrumental group is excellent too. But in its own right this new performance is very good benefitting from fine performances, good ‘creative’ choices and a sense of the dramatic potential of the piece that makes listening to the disc from first to last more of a theatrical and rewarding experience than it can sometimes be. Certainly the bright star of Walton’s genius, barely out of his teens, shines through and that is always to be celebrated.

Nick Barnard

Previous review: Paul Corfield Godfrey (October 2022)

Published: November 9, 2022