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Track Listings
| 1. The Complete Extant Numbers - Bron/Stilgoe/Nash Ens/Lloyd-Jones |
| 2. Suite From The Incidental Music To Salome - Bron/Stilgoe/Nash Ens/Lloyd-Jones |
Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
What we know as Façade has changed many times since it was first publicly unveiled in 1923. New numbers were added, others were dropped from the various performing editions. Now we have a chance to hear all the existing material in full--34 numbers--gathered together to make a coherent performance. The combination of Edith Sitwell's sardonic poems and Walton's witty music is very difficult to bring off in concert--achieving the balance between the reciters and the musicians is notoriously tricky. It presents fewer problems on disc, but you still need your nose in the booklet to pick up all the words. Eleanor Bron and Richard Stilgoe perform with obvious enjoyment, Stilgoe crisp and Bron sultry. They have some hard acts to follow, previous reciters on disc having included such figures as Dame Peggy Ashcroft and Paul Scofield. The Nash Ensemble under David Lloyd-Jones provides the kind of performance that makes you realise why it is rated one of Britain's best chamber ensembles--clean, rounded playing, beautifully recorded by Hyperion. As a bonus, we get three short pieces by Constant Lambert, himself a celebrated reciter of the Sitwell/Walton extravaganza. --Keith Clarke
Review
GRAMOPHONE CRITICS' CHOICE 'There have been several excellent recordings of Façade, but Hyperion's now moves to the head of the class' (Fanfare, USA) 'Eleanor Bron and Richard Stilgoe make an excellent pair of reciters, and the recoding in a natural acoustic balances them well. [Stilgoe] is the most fluent Façade reciter I have ever heard, with phenomenally clear articulation, starting with a virtuoso display in the opening poem, "Hornpipe" ... Under David Lloyd-Jones the brilliant sextet of players from the Nash Ensemble ... could not be more idiomatic, with rhythms delectably pointed' (Gramophone) 'I can't imagine a clearer, more virtuosic account of the score (International Record Review) 'The playing of the Nash Ensemble is quite outstanding. Eleanor Bron, as one might expect, purrs her way contentedly through her texts (Hi-Fi News) 'This outstanding group of musicians has recorded a definitive and, for the first time on disc, totally complete Facade. David Lloyd-Jones, one of the great conductors of British music, elicits fabulous playing from The Nash' (The Yorkshire Post) 'Eleanor Bron and Richard Stilgoe make excellent reciters. The Nash Ensemble could not be more idiomatic in pointing the young Walton's sparkling parodies' (The Guardian) 'The Nash, as one would expect, is second to none in this music, extracting every last whiff of wit and textural audacity' --(BBC Music Magazine)
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
Many people will be familiar with the various arrangements that Walton made of the quirky pieces that he wrote to accompany a recitation of Edith Sitwell's poems. The poems themselves were concerned with the sounds and patterns that the words made so it isn't too terrible if you don't pick up everyone. However on this disc the recitation is crisp where required and sensuous elsewhere. The playing is excellent and David Lloyd Jones brings the whole thing together in a first rate and entirely successful performance.
16 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD
I have over 1000 classical CDs - this one is my favourite (at least for a while!)
The recitation is perfect, the playing superb, the packaging strange but good with excellent sleeve notes and original artwork from the stage production. If you want the best; this is IT.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
3 reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Facade - a unique experience!
3 April 2007
Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase
Walton (and Sitwell's) Facade is a delightful entertainment and nowhere better than here with all the extra poems that Walton set.
If you have never heard the piece before - it takes a little effort - but that is well worth the time.
The settings are witty and apposite. Stilgoe and Bron are the perfect pair to recite - I suspect few of the listeners in the US will have heard of them - except Stilgoe has written lyrics for Lloyd Webber.
I encourage you to try this CD - I am sure you will enjoy it.
If you have never heard the piece before - it takes a little effort - but that is well worth the time.
The settings are witty and apposite. Stilgoe and Bron are the perfect pair to recite - I suspect few of the listeners in the US will have heard of them - except Stilgoe has written lyrics for Lloyd Webber.
I encourage you to try this CD - I am sure you will enjoy it.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
An Entertaining Performance
16 July 2009
Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase
I first heard Façade many years ago in a televised performance performed by the Boston Pops conducted by Arthur Fiedler and spoken by Tony Randall. I still have the LP recording of the work but, alas, it has not been issued on CD. For me, this recording by the Nash Ensemble goes a long way to taking the place of that recording.
I had been unaware that there were different versions of Façade and I never knew that three poems had not been excluded from the final version. In any case, all of the poems that William Walton scored are presented here. The booklet is highly informative providing facts about the poems and which version of Façade they belong to. The speakers are Eleanor Bron and Richard Stilgoe, both of whom were unfamiliar to me. Both speakers do an excellent job of reciting the poems, some of which clip along at a very fast tempo: they bring a lot of character to their reading. The poems themselves make use of quite a few arcane words and, as I recall, Edit Stillwell chose many of her word combinations for their rhyming qualities rather than their specific meaning. So I still wonder about:
"As the steely grasses' thrill,
Or the sound of the onycha
When the phoca has the pica
In the palace of the Queen Chinee!"
The short suite from Constant Lambert's incidental music to Salome fits well with the Walton. The excepts come from various parts of the play and the music was used to link scenes. The scoring is for just four players: clarinet, trumpet, cello and percussion. It is interesting what Lambert does with this small force. The music does not recall Strauss but sounds more jazz inspired.
The Nash Ensemble perform beautifully conveying all of the nice characteristic touches Walton included in his score. The recording, as one would expect from Hyperion, is first-rate. If you don't know Façadem the complete work is great fun. William Walton arranged some of the music as a ballet suite but without the words something is missing.
I had been unaware that there were different versions of Façade and I never knew that three poems had not been excluded from the final version. In any case, all of the poems that William Walton scored are presented here. The booklet is highly informative providing facts about the poems and which version of Façade they belong to. The speakers are Eleanor Bron and Richard Stilgoe, both of whom were unfamiliar to me. Both speakers do an excellent job of reciting the poems, some of which clip along at a very fast tempo: they bring a lot of character to their reading. The poems themselves make use of quite a few arcane words and, as I recall, Edit Stillwell chose many of her word combinations for their rhyming qualities rather than their specific meaning. So I still wonder about:
"As the steely grasses' thrill,
Or the sound of the onycha
When the phoca has the pica
In the palace of the Queen Chinee!"
The short suite from Constant Lambert's incidental music to Salome fits well with the Walton. The excepts come from various parts of the play and the music was used to link scenes. The scoring is for just four players: clarinet, trumpet, cello and percussion. It is interesting what Lambert does with this small force. The music does not recall Strauss but sounds more jazz inspired.
The Nash Ensemble perform beautifully conveying all of the nice characteristic touches Walton included in his score. The recording, as one would expect from Hyperion, is first-rate. If you don't know Façadem the complete work is great fun. William Walton arranged some of the music as a ballet suite but without the words something is missing.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful
A fine version, but hardly a perfect one
1 May 2011
Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase
I'll skip the complicated story concerning the background of "Façade". Suffice to say, Edith Sitwell conceived of Façade as a study on "the effect on rhythm, and on speed, of the use of rhymes, assonances and dissonances, placed outwardly and inwardly (at different places in the line and in most elaborate patterns". In 1922 Walton was called to the task of putting music to the numbers; it was a success though over the subsequent years numbers were added and/or dropped; 21 numbers were published (and are the well-known ones), but a total of 43 poems were at some time or other put to music. 8 numbers were published as Façade 2; the release at hand contain some additional ones lost in the long process as well, 33 in all (the booklet contains discussions of the lost or incomplete ones as well). One objection is that Hyperion has mixed up the extant works and created their own sequence, rather than giving us first Façade, then Façade 2, then the additional numbers.
But OK. How does it fare? In Façade the reciters are crucial; their articulation is in fact much of the music (the whole point is the sound of the words, and certainly not their content), and they need crucially to avoid over-characterization or putting too much personality into it. I think Eleanor Bron and Richard Stilgoe fare good, in general. Some of the numbers are virtually impossible to do right, but the impression here is favorable - except for Stilgoe's sometimes annoying mannerisms. Brons is generally very fine, although some of the numbers lack a little precision. The instrumental contributions from the Nash Ensemble under David Lloy-Jones are splendid, however; crisp and sharply articulated (this is certainly Walton's most obviously Stravinskian work, especially in the later numbers). Hyperion does for once have a problem with the recorded balance, however - the reciters are often overshadowed in places where it is crucial that they are not. So what we've got is a fine account of a rather remarkable piece, but not a perfect one. Fans will of course need to have it for the rejected numbers (and possibly for the excellent booklet), but on the evidence of this recording it is rather obvious that the rejected numbers were rejected for a reason.
We get a bonus in a suite from Constant Lambert's music (for clarinet, trumpet, cello and percussion) to a staging of Wilde's Salome; it is an acerbic, sarcastic score that was probably effective for the stage presentation but is surely of biographical rather than musical interest.
But OK. How does it fare? In Façade the reciters are crucial; their articulation is in fact much of the music (the whole point is the sound of the words, and certainly not their content), and they need crucially to avoid over-characterization or putting too much personality into it. I think Eleanor Bron and Richard Stilgoe fare good, in general. Some of the numbers are virtually impossible to do right, but the impression here is favorable - except for Stilgoe's sometimes annoying mannerisms. Brons is generally very fine, although some of the numbers lack a little precision. The instrumental contributions from the Nash Ensemble under David Lloy-Jones are splendid, however; crisp and sharply articulated (this is certainly Walton's most obviously Stravinskian work, especially in the later numbers). Hyperion does for once have a problem with the recorded balance, however - the reciters are often overshadowed in places where it is crucial that they are not. So what we've got is a fine account of a rather remarkable piece, but not a perfect one. Fans will of course need to have it for the rejected numbers (and possibly for the excellent booklet), but on the evidence of this recording it is rather obvious that the rejected numbers were rejected for a reason.
We get a bonus in a suite from Constant Lambert's music (for clarinet, trumpet, cello and percussion) to a staging of Wilde's Salome; it is an acerbic, sarcastic score that was probably effective for the stage presentation but is surely of biographical rather than musical interest.
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