Walton, on the Nose

This is the second Album of the Fortnight bit of reviewing fun (see the last post for an explanation...although it's pretty obvious).  I chose this one, and it's fair to say that nobody liked it.  To be fair, I did pick it to test them, but I honestly think this is well worth your effort.  If you want to play along at home, the video cam be found at https://youtu.be/0zpyNKhiXWQ.

 

WILLIAM WALTON - FACADE: AN ENTERTAINMENT, Ludwig, under the leadership of Barbara Hannigan, Ojai Music Festival 2019

Walton's Facade is subtitled "An Entertainment".  I suspect some listeners would take issue with this.  Still, the mixture of Walton's distorted early twentieth century popular song (music hall, barrack room singalongs, polite village fete folk, etc) with Edith Sitwell's chewy tongue-twister poems has always been a winner for me,  I especially like the fact that the original performance had the orator hidden behind a curtain barking through a megaphone (lo-fi rolled up paper type), and that the instructions dictate that the words must not be sung: maybe it's always reminded me of MES.  

I think I partly like the because it reminds me of my days in secondary school - which was a state school, but 450 years old, and rather odd in some ways - where the dying embers of the British Empire were puffed by gruff, gone-to-seed sergeant majors, while being snidely eyed by louche ironic aesthetes, who nevertheless put up with the pretence so long as the sherry kept coming.

I like this performance, it has a brightness and tightness in the playing, and the barely possible lyrics are taken at such a canter all you can do is doff your cap.  Of course the yanks don't *quite* get it, and I think play it bold and camp without the melancholy that underpins cheap entertainment in the UK (I'm thinking Punch & Judy, panto or even mystery plays).

Barbara Hannigan keeps it all excellently under control though, and all in all I'd say that this is a highly recommended version of the piece - especially for a first listen.  I'm quite a fan of Hannigan, her vocals are fantastic, and she is also quite a stage presence.  Here she is performing some Ligeti, which must be preposterously difficult to do: https://youtu.be/_pYb8eQIYfU