SOMM Celebrates Walton Centennial

Cover of the album being discussed with Michael Ayrton’s 1948 portrait of William Walton (courtesy of Naxos of America)

One week from today, SOMM Recordings will release an album entitled William Walton: A Centenary Celebration. This has nothing to do with the dates of either Walton’s birth or death. Rather, it marks the 100th anniversary of the first performance of Façade, an “entertainment” setting 21 eccentric poems by Edith Sitwell, given rhythmic recitation reflected by music that Walton composed for a chamber ensemble, along with an opening fanfare. This is coupled with the music that Walton composed for the film that Laurence Olivier directed (and starred in) based on the text of William Shakespeare’s play Henry V. On this recording all of the Walton segments, arranged by Edward Watson, are interleaved with recitations of Shakespeare’s words, all delivered by Kevin Whatley. As usual, Amazon.com is processing pre-orders for this new recording.

This is a useful document of music that is seldom performed and probably just as rarely recorded. Back in my student days, I was fortunate enough to attend a (free) concert performance of Façade at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. By that time I had listened to a recording, so I was prepared for the outrageous eccentricities of the texts. However, there was a rather strong streak of conservatism among those that visited the Gardner Museum; and I have to confess to prankish amusement in watching them squirm at the outrageousness of the texts and the “pop” rhetoric of the music.

Nevertheless, 21 is a rather large number of poems; and 40 minutes amounts to a considerable amount of time to spend sitting and listening to them, however engaging the music may be. Experiencing Façade in its entirety cultivates an appreciation for the much shorter instruments-only suite that Walton extracted from the original score. To be fair, however, this particular recording brings two reciters to the Sitwell texts, Roderick Williams and Tamsin Dalley. Their interplay often reinforces the humor in those texts with more dimensions than might be provided by a single reciter. Nevertheless, even that dose of dramatics still cannot contend adequately with the overall 40-minute duration.

The Olivier Henry V also figured significantly during my student days. Quite honestly, I have lost track of the number of times I have seen it; and the impact was such that I have never been able to stomach Kenneth Branagh’s attempt to follow in Olivier’s footsteps. Nevertheless, the impact of Olivier’s direction was so strong that I must confess that, when I listened to the suite on this album, even with the recitations from Shakespeare to guide my way, I realized that none of the music was familiar to me. This was clearly a situation in which “incidental music” was truly incidental! As a result, there is little to draw me to Watson’s efforts to turn that incidental music into a concert listening experience.