Listening to it today, it’s hard to believe that William Walton (1902-1983) was just 19 when he composed Façade, that dazzling drawing room confection of classical, jazz and popular song deployed in setting Edith Sitwell’s eccentric, stream of consciousness poetry. Dubbed “A Centenary Celebration”, this new recording commemorates the premiere of the work that took place on January 24, 1922. Ensconced in the drawing-room of Osbert Sitwell’s house in Chelsea, an audience of 20 or so literati listened as Edith declaimed her verses through the hole in a specially designed curtain with the aid of a Sengerphone – an upmarket megaphone invented by Hugo von Senger in 1876 to amplify the voice of the dragon at the premiere of the Ring Cycle. 

William Walton

Walton himself conducted an ensemble of four on that occasion, though here it is played by the more familiar line up of flute (doubling piccolo), clarinet (doubling bass clarinet), alto saxophone, trumpet, percussion, and cello. Famously, Sitwell herself offered little in the way of literary interpretation beyond her uniquely clipped paint-stripper of a voice. Many have tackled...