A Lovely Evening

William Walton's 'Façade' in Rome,
alongside a symphony by Alfredo Casella,
appreciated by GIUSEPPE PENNISI

Music by modern British composers is not often played in Rome. The main exceptions are Benjamin Britten and William Walton. The Istituzione Universitaria dei Concerti (IUC) — the concert organization of the oldest and best known universities in Rome (La Sapienza) does introduce a British composer or two almost every year in its regular concert season, held in its magnificent Grand Hall. The concert I attended was held on 22 April 2017. Its program central point was Façade by William Walton preceded by a short symphony by Alfredo Casella.

The Aula Magna auditorium in Rome on 22 April 2017. Photo © 2017 Damiano Rosa

Façade (also known as Façade — An Entertainment) is a series of 21 short poems by Edith Sitwell. The poems are not sung but recited, with musical rhythm, over an instrumental accompaniment by Walton. The poems and the music exist in several versions. In Rome, the 'definitive' 1951 version was performed with a small ensemble from the Roma Sinfonietta orchestra, conducted by Fabio Maestri. Two outstanding British singers (tenor Ian Bostridge and soprano Sophie Daneman) recited the poems with a musical touch over a carpet of orchestral music.

Sophie Daneman. Photo © Sandra Lousada. Click on the image for higher resolution

Façade — An Entertainment was first performed privately in the Sitwell family's London house on 24 January 1922. It is known that, after the public performance in 1923, Virginia Woolf wrote to her sister that she had not understood much. Façade — An Entertainment achieved both fame and notoriety for its unconventional form. In fact, the short piece (45 minutes) refers to the world of music hall and jazz, at times in a very explicit manner: some poems are titled Polka, Something Lies beyond the Scene, Valse, Popular Song, Fox-Trot and Old Sir Faulk. At other times the manner is more subdued.
Walton arranged two suites of his music for full orchestra. When the choreographer Frederick Ashton proposed performing the work with the staged set painted by Picasso, Sitwell did not wish her poems to be part of it, and the orchestral arrangements were used. After Sitwell's death, Walton published supplementary versions of Façade for speakers and small ensemble using numbers dropped between the premiere and the publication of the full score in 1951.
As mentioned above, the 'spoken parts' are not quite spoken. Ian Bostridge and Sophie Daneman recite with their voices set for singing, thus full of rhythm and harmony even though they read short poems and nursery rhymes. The atmosphere of the nineteen twenties and thirties is evoked well, and has a lot of charm.