Image courtesy of Courtney Cloud, U.S.A.

Virtually a full house attended the Sinfonietta’s somewhat eccentric concert for a delightfully skittish evening on Saturday 19th June 2010. This was the third in their Festival of British Music with the Elgar Cello Concerto to come on Friday 9th July at St Helens Town Hall (see www.sinfonietta.org.uk/ for details).

The first half gave us ‘Façade – an Entertainment’, an extraordinary twinning of spoken words and small orchestral ensemble, the brainchild of Edith Sitwell, who, in 1920, requested the young William Walton to write music to accompany her apparently nonsensical verses, which were to be recited in strict dance rhythms rather than sung (a sort of nursery-rhyme sing-song effect, or sometimes a patter-song).

The fourteen that we heard were recited by Lynne Rogers and John Flood with great gusto and skill, challenging the audience to make some sense of the words while the six players wove all sorts of musical jokes into the dance-rhythms.

The poems, abstract, with references from Queen Victoria to Greek goddesses to English music halls and Spanish lovers, are full of meaningless rhymes, revelling in the sound of the words, with apparent allusions to the poet's childhood and references to wild seas. The witty music takes its tone from the poems, following the idea that Sitwell was writing primarily for sound, rather than meaning, and echoing those sounds, the amusing but empty chatter of the social whirl.

The complexity of it all was somewhat overwhelming and bemusing at times. ‘I do like to be beside the seaside’ became a part of a Tango /Pasodoble section, while the Yodelling Song had a woodwind yodel all the way through, with William Tell drumming away in the background. Along the way we heard the hornpipe, habanera, waltz, polka, a familiar country dance and a ‘Scottish Rhapsody’, while the words roamed far and wide – quite how Heliogabalus came into the equation was unclear, but the use of interesting-sounding words and names was clearly part of the fun.

The overall effect was quite giddy and silly, like too much sparkling wine.

The second half of the programme, ‘Cox and Box’, attracted a large contingent of G & S fans, as it is an early short comic opera by Sullivan, before he teamed up with Gilbert. With Andrew Follin, Ken Rees and Phil Wade performing, we were not disappointed, as they all three entered fully into the spirit of the show. The music had all Sullivan’s expected panache and the trio were a delight, tuneful and articulate, though the ‘plot’ is so daft and ridiculous, even by the standards of comic opera, that it was a case of ‘so bad it’s hysterical’.

All in all, a delightfully skittish evening of riotous nonsense. The Sinfonietta Ensemble were on excellent form, prancing their way through the giddy tunes, keeping everything light and bubbly for the warm summer evening, an absolute joy. Entertainment indeed!

Alan Free (conductor), Celia Hebron (violin), Tom Sykes (violin), Margaret Webb (viola), Ilona Hepburn (cello), Gladys Williams (double-bass), Jeremy Sleith (percussion), Sandra Lloyd (flute and piccolo), Denise Burrows (oboe), Peter Hill (clarinet and bass clarinet), Valerie Warr (clarinet and saxophone), Cliff Jones (horn), Paul Thomas (trumpet), John Davies (trombone).

Illustration drawn for the Sinfonietta by Courtney Cloud, U.S.A.
(redmagecubby.deviantart.com)