William Walton - Façade - Kit and The Widow

CRC1615-2

£10.00

14 August 2006 sees the release of a new recording of William Walton and Edith Sitwell's entertainment Façade (1922) featuring reciters Kit & The Widow and the musicians of the Southbank Sinfonia Ensemble. Unapologetically exuberant, this performance celebrates the fascinating marriage of Sitwell's rhythmic invention and the dramatic, autobiographical whimsy of her writing.

Capitalising on the possibilities afforded by modern studio techniques, the recording creates sound worlds drawn from Sitwell's text for each of Façade's 21 numbers. Whilst all of Walton’s elegant music was studio-recorded, the poems have been performed on location. The nautical flavour of the opening number, 'Hornpipe', has been captured on the shingle beach at Cley in Norfolk, while Sitwell's fascination with the botanical comes alive in the gardens at Didlington Manor, an atmospheric backdrop for that perennial favourite 'Popular Song’. Throughout the disc this sympathetic use of sound breathes life into Sitwell’s surrealist landscapes.
 
The sonic playfulness of this recording is a response to the mythology surrounding authentic performance practice for Façade. Sitwell herself prescribed a delivery that should be as uninflected as possible, archly declaring her Post Modern poetry to be 'abstract... patterns in sound'. However this unequivocal attitude is complicated by her own recordings of the work, which prove to be considerably inflected. In fact it would seem that Sitwell’s insistence on a purely phonetic delivery was an attempt to make a virtue out of necessity. With only rudimentary vocal amplification from a megaphone, and the reciter concealed behind a curtain, the text in early performances was virtually inaudible, and nuanced interpretation was therefore impossible. Declaring that any such sophistication was inappropriate neatly side-stepped these logistical difficulties.

No longer troubled by such problems of balance, acclaimed cabaret performers Kit & The Widow feel liberated from such an austere approach. They offer up a vividly theatrical rendition, honed through many successful concert performances. Their classical pedigree perfectly complements the impeccable playing of the recent music graduates of the Southbank Sinfonia Ensemble, under the direction of David Corkhill. This revisionist recording is sure to delight and intrigue both Façade aficionados and neophytes.

Also featured on the disc is the first ever recording of 'The Swiss Family Whittlebot', a parody of Façade and the Sitwell family, written by Noël Coward for his 1923 revue London Calling. The sketch caused major ructions between Coward and Edith Sitwell, who believed she had been portrayed as a lesbian. She refused to speak to Coward for many years afterwards. Alongside the sketch is Kit & The Widow's own tribute to Sitwell, a song comissioned by BBC Radio 3 to help celebrate the centenary of the birth of Sir William Walton in 2002.

‘With her prolific output, not to mention her remarkable sense of the sartorial, Edith Sitwell is truly a Barbara Cartland among poets.’ - Kit & The Widow

Track Listing:

[1] to [22] Facade - an entertainment - Music by William Walton, words by Edith Sitwell:

Fanfare - Hornpipe - En Famille - Mariner Man - Lond Steel Grass - Through Guilded Trellises - Tango Pasodoblé - Lullaby for Jumbo - Black Mrs Behemoth - Tarantella - The Man from a Far Countree - By the Lake - Country Dance - Polka - Four in the Morning - Something Lies Beyond the Scene - Valse - Jodelling Song - Scotch Rhapsody - Popular Song - Fox-trot - Sir Beelzebub

[23] Sailors Come by Kit & The Widow
[24] The Swiss Family Whittlebott by Noel Coward