Hila Plitmann, Fred Child, Kevin Deas, Virginia Arts Festival Chamber Players - Walton: The Complete Façades (2022) [24/96]

Very few musical compositions truly deserve that overworked adjective “unique,” but it accurately applies to William Walton’s Façade.”] Or perhaps we should call this mostly-early work Façades, as it is recorded here in three parts: “Façade – An Entertainment” (21 pieces dating from 1922); “Façade 2 – A Further Entertainment” (8 more pieces; 1978-79); and the four pieces of “Façade: Additional Numbers” (1922, 1977).

These brief and colorful pieces are spoken settings of engaging, often witty, and sometimes goofy poems by Edith Sitwell, and they belong to a genre that’s all their own. The Façade pieces exist in many versions, adaptations, and revisions. The youthful Walton set the spoken poems for narrator – three speakers are featured here – over a small and colorful chamber ensemble. The poems are declaimed (in exact rhythm with the music) and not sung.

In these precisely timed performances, the narrators include operatic soprano Hila Plitmann, radio host Fred Child, and bass-baritone Kevin Deas. All are excellent, exhibiting their own personal styles but always with the words exactly aligned to the music. (Not surprisingly, the two singers – Plitmann and Deas – tend slightly toward pitched speech; Child’s narration is less attentive to the musical background but still admirably effective.) All three speakers are beautifully clear and extremely expressive; you won’t miss a syllable, no matter how speedily the music goes on “mumbling, rumbling. and tumbling” (as one of the poems puts it).

"While there have been a number of fine recordings of Façade, this one takes the blue ribbon. The combination of three superlative narrators, a spot-on musical ensemble plus JoAnn Falletta’s matchless conducting and the customary top-notch sound and packaging from Naxos makes this what I predict will be the ‘go to’ recording of the Façade music for years to come." (Raymond Jones, WHRO)

"All three speakers are beautifully clear and extremely expressive; you won’t miss a syllable, no matter how speedily the music goes on “mumbling, rumbling. and tumbling” (as one of the poems puts it).

The Façade spoken texts are nimbly accompanied here by the virtuosic Virginia Arts Festival Chamber Orchestra with the excellent JoAnn Falletta conducting. The precision of the words’ alignment with the notes is phenomenal. So is the clarity with which all the words are enunciated – or trilled, declaimed, drawled, suavely whispered, or exhorted. Each of the three performers puts a unique stamp on the respective movements, with a wide array of tonal variety and interpretive finesse. This disc represents what may well be considered the “last word” on Façade; some of the music heard here has not been previously recorded." (Melinda Bargreen, EarRelevant)

Hila Plitmann, narrator
Fred Child, narrator
Kevin Deas, narrator
Virginia Arts Festival Chamber Players
JoAnn Falletta, direction

Tracklist:
1. Virginia Arts Festival Chamber Players & JoAnn Falletta – Façade 1, An Entertainment: Fanfare (00:39)
2. Fred Child, Virginia Arts Festival Chamber Players & JoAnn Falletta – Façade 1, An Entertainment: I. Hornpipe (01:18)
3. Hila Plitmann, Kevin Deas, Virginia Arts Festival Chamber Players & JoAnn Falletta – Façade 1, An Entertainment: II. En famille (02:52)
4. Hila Plitmann, Kevin Deas, Virginia Arts Festival Chamber Players & JoAnn Falletta – Façade 1, An Entertainment: III. Mariner Man (00:40)
5. Fred Child, Virginia Arts Festival Chamber Players & JoAnn Falletta – Façade 1, An Entertainment: IV. Long Steel Grass (02:09)
6. Hila Plitmann, Virginia Arts Festival Chamber Players & JoAnn Falletta – Façade 1, An Entertainment: V. Through Gilded Trellises (02:10)
7. Fred Child, Virginia Arts Festival Chamber Players & JoAnn Falletta – Façade 1, An Entertainment: VI. Tango-Pasodoblé (01:55)
8. Kevin Deas, Virginia Arts Festival Chamber Players & JoAnn Falletta – Façade 1, An Entertainment: VII. Lullaby for Jumbo (01:23)
9. Fred Child, Virginia Arts Festival Chamber Players & JoAnn Falletta – Façade 1, An Entertainment: VIII. Black Mrs. Behemoth (00:54)
10. Hila Plitmann, Virginia Arts Festival Chamber Players & JoAnn Falletta – Façade 1, An Entertainment: IX. Tarantella (01:22)
11. Kevin Deas, Virginia Arts Festival Chamber Players & JoAnn Falletta – Façade 1, An Entertainment: X. The Man from a Far Countree (01:35)
12. Hila Plitmann, Fred Child, Kevin Deas, Virginia Arts Festival Chamber Players & JoAnn Falletta – Façade 1, An Entertainment: XI. By the Lake (01:41)
13. Hila Plitmann, Virginia Arts Festival Chamber Players & JoAnn Falletta – Façade 1, An Entertainment: XII. Country Dance (01:56)
14. Kevin Deas, Virginia Arts Festival Chamber Players & JoAnn Falletta – Façade 1, An Entertainment: XIII. Polka (01:19)
15. Hila Plitmann, Virginia Arts Festival Chamber Players & JoAnn Falletta – Façade 1, An Entertainment: XIV. Four in the Morning (02:01)
16. Fred Child, Virginia Arts Festival Chamber Players & JoAnn Falletta – Façade 1, An Entertainment, XV. Something Lies Beyond the Scene (01:01)
17. Hila Plitmann, Virginia Arts Festival Chamber Players & JoAnn Falletta – Façade 1, An Entertainment: XVI. Valse (03:09)
18. Kevin Deas, Virginia Arts Festival Chamber Players & JoAnn Falletta – Façade 1, An Entertainment: XVII. Jodelling Song (02:14)
19. Fred Child, Virginia Arts Festival Chamber Players & JoAnn Falletta – Façade 1, An Entertainment: XVIII. Scotch Rhapsody (01:26)
20. Hila Plitmann, Virginia Arts Festival Chamber Players & JoAnn Falletta – Façade 1, An Entertainment: XIX. Popular Song (02:00)
21. Fred Child, Virginia Arts Festival Chamber Players & JoAnn Falletta – Façade 1, An Entertainment: XX. Fox-Trot "Old Sir Faulk" (02:12)
22. Hila Plitmann, Fred Child, Kevin Deas, Virginia Arts Festival Chamber Players & JoAnn Falletta – Façade 1, An Entertainment: XXI. Sir Beelzebub (01:03)
23. Kevin Deas, Virginia Arts Festival Chamber Players & JoAnn Falletta – Façade 2, A Further Entertainment: I. Flourish - Came the Great Popinjay (01:17)
24. Hila Plitmann, Virginia Arts Festival Chamber Players & JoAnn Falletta – Façade 2, A Further Entertainment: II. Aubade (03:23)
25. Fred Child, Virginia Arts Festival Chamber Players & JoAnn Falletta – Façade 2, A Further Entertainment: III. March (00:57)
26. Hila Plitmann, Virginia Arts Festival Chamber Players & JoAnn Falletta – Façade 2, A Further Entertainment: IV. Madame Mouse Trots (00:43)
27. Kevin Deas, Virginia Arts Festival Chamber Players & JoAnn Falletta – Façade 2, A Further Entertainment: V. The Octogenarian (01:17)
28. Fred Child, Virginia Arts Festival Chamber Players & JoAnn Falletta – Façade 2, A Further Entertainment: VI. Gardener Janus Catches a Naiad (00:57)
29. Hila Plitmann, Virginia Arts Festival Chamber Players & JoAnn Falletta – Façade 2, A Further Entertainment: VII. Water Party (01:08)
30. Kevin Deas, Virginia Arts Festival Chamber Players & JoAnn Falletta – Façade 2, A Further Entertainment: VIII. Said King Pompey (00:45)
31. Fred Child, Virginia Arts Festival Chamber Players & JoAnn Falletta – Façade, Additional Numbers: I. Small Talk (01:38)
32. Hila Plitmann, Virginia Arts Festival Chamber Players & JoAnn Falletta – Façade, Additional Numbers: II. Daphne (01:44)
33. Kevin Deas, Virginia Arts Festival Chamber Players & JoAnn Falletta – Façade, Additional Numbers: III. The White Owl (01:08)
34. Fred Child, Virginia Arts Festival Chamber Players & JoAnn Falletta – Façade, Additional Numbers: IV. The Last Galop (01:41)


Thanks to the Original customer!