Proms Chamber Music 8 - 8.09.14: Shostakovich & Walton, Nash Ensemble, Wilson

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Monday, 8 September
1.00 p.m. – c. 2.00 p.m.
Cadogan Hall

Nash Ensemble live at the BBC Proms in waltzes by Shostakovich, and Walton's witty Facade, conducted by John Wilson.

Shostakovich (arr. L. Atovmyan): Four Waltzes
Walton: Façade

Felicity Palmer (reciter)
Ian Bostridge (reciter)
Nash Ensemble
John Wilson (conductor)

This year's focus on William Walton wouldn't be complete without his witty, genre-bending 'entertainment' Façade. Walton's first big success, the work sets poems by his friend and patron Edith Sitwell to create a sequence of colourful, whimsical and piquant numbers for chamber ensemble and reciters.

The whimsical side of Shostakovich is also represented, in his Four Waltzes. Arranged from the composer's earlier film scores, they range from the good-humoured 'Spring Waltz', the faux naïf 'Waltz-Scherzo' and the charmingly kitsch 'Barrel Organ Waltz'.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Do singers often do the recitations in Façade?

[Flosshilde]

Peter Pears did in the recording with Edith Sitwell. As the poems are experiments in sound and rhythm I think you need someone who is used to thinking about text in those terms; an actor is probably more atuned to what the words say, & trying to give them a 'natural' speech rhythm. (which is not to say that singers don't pay any attention to the meaning of the words) (well, most of them, anyway).

When I heard this being trailed the other day my first reaction was 'wonderful', as it's a piece I enjoy. That was swiftly followed by 'damn' when I heard that the dreaded Bostridge was one of the reciters.

[Flosshilde]

his witty, genre-bending 'entertainment' Façade.

Ooops - I just read that as 'gender-bending'

[Serial_Apologist]

Ooops - I just read that as 'gender-bending'

Only on the facade presumably!

[mrbouffant]

Not sure if I am allowed to do so, but I have a pair of Gallery H tickets spare for this concert. Face value is £10 each. Unfortunately I just found out I can't make it so would like to offer them out here if I may. Please PM me for further details.

[Don Petter]

See my post #891 in the Pronunciation Watch thread.

[ardcarp]

Do singers often do the recitations in Façade?

Yes they do. Whilst actors might be the obvious choice (and sometimes make a really good stab at it) one does need someone with musical training who can count. The rhythms are not especially difficult, but coming in at the right time, following a beat and being rock steady (things which are second nature to any orchestral player) presents a big problem for thespians, however musical they may be.

I was very much looking forward to Monday's lunchtime Prom from the Cadogan as I have lived and loved Facade for nearly 50 years. It was not a comfortable experience, at least on the radio. I can't quite grasp why John Wilson was chosen to direct the excellent Nash Ensemble. I mean, Facade isn't exactly excerpts from 1930s musicals. Felicity Palmer, IMO, made an excellent job of it under the circumstances. Ian B, OTOH. sounded like a strangulated hernia (Whittlebot?) and seemed to have confused extroverted declamation with Schonbergian sprechstimme. I am not a Bostridge-basher like some on this Forum, and admire his light, lyrical, very English tenor voice. I don't think he was right for this. The whole performance had a 'nervous' feel about it, and I think Felicity P was the only one who seemed to have got the measure of it.

I wonder if anyone present could comment?