The Whole Facade

New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 919, 22 March 1957, Page 15

The Whole Facade

\ /HoaN Auckiand fFroms audiences enthusiastically received Walton’s Facade suite recently, their applause was surely for the perky, jazzy rhythms, rather than for the parody qualities which the years have somewhat dimmed. Yet, having once heard the recording of Edith Sitwell reading ‘the verses above the music, I’ve always felt mildly dissatisfied to come across one without the other. So I found the NZBS production, with Keith Falkner as chanter, quite delightful. It must be fiendishly difficult to chime in Miss Sitwell’s fascinatingly odd patterns of words with the music, but Mr. Falkner made it all sound as if he’d written the poems himself. I had expected both words and music to date more than somewhat, to smell rather obviously of the sophisticated twenties, of bright young talents cocking a snook at popular tastes now almost forgotten. But, although here and there, the period showed through, the work as a whole had a wit and freshness, a lively humour and cleverness

which have not dated at all, And, in some of the sections, there was a strange, haunting poetry of childhood imaginings and innocent nostalgia which made Facade something more than highbrow . fun.