Fanfare –

Façade, an entertainment (1921–42)

Fanfare –

Hornpipe          En Famille          Mariner Man

Long Steel Grass          Through Gilded Trellisses          Tango-Pasodoble

Lullaby for Jumbo            Black Mrs Behemoth          Tarantella

A 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            Old Sir Faulk, foxtrot        Sir Beelzebub

If Walton’s Façade music had been as radical as Edith Sitwell’s verse it would never have become as popular as it actually has – and in so many different ways: not only in its place in the original “entertainment” for reciter and chamber ensemble but also as a source of material for, among other things, two orchestral suites and two ballets. At the same time, of course, it could be argued that Sitwell’s frankly abstract verse would never have been enjoyed by such a wide audience without Walton’s music. It is far from nonsense verse even though consistent sense is by no means as conspicuous a quality as verbal virtuosity – in word-association, both end-rhyme and internal rhyme, assonance, rhythm and percussive colouring. Wit, nostalgia, pathos, classical and contemporary allusion are not excluded.

Walton’s contribution to the “entertainment”, which did not end with the first performance in 1921 but continued to develop until well after the completion of the definitive version 21 years later, was a startlingly fresh and brilliantly accomplished response to the musical suggestions in the verse. With pieces like Hornpipe, Tango-Pasodoble (I do like to be beside the seaside), Polka, and Jodelling Song there were ready-made tunes in the popular repertoire. With others, like Tarantella, Scotch Rhapsody, Popular Song and the Old Sir Faulk foxtrot he didn’t have to look very far to find an appropriate national or dance-hall stylistic models. Unfailingly entertaining though those numbers are, however, some of the more imaginative musical ideas occur in less obvious situations – the bass clarinet and alto saxphone’s reflection of Sitwell’s “grey leaves thick-furred” and the flute’s hint of the blues on “the torrid day” in Lullaby for Jumbo, the impressionist setting of By the Lake, and the eerie wind counterpoint of Four in the Morning. Sir Beelzebub is a last bravura piece for the reciter.