Classical Club | Façade at Freemasons’ Hall

Façade at Freemasons’ Hall

Walton: Façade: An Entertainment

London Mozart Players Benjamin Pope: conductor : narrator Mozart Players Classical Club | Façade at Freemasons’ Hall

Coming soon... Façade at With artists from the Young Classical Artists Trust Freemasons’ Hall

Broadcast on 7pm, Thursday 8 October. Filmed at Freemasons’ Hall.

Walton: Façade: An Entertainment

London Mozart Players Benjamin Pope: conductor Samuel West: narrator Bows and Celebrating Beethoven Cello – Sebastian Comberti Strauss: Concerto in D major for Beethoven: Coriolan Overture, Op.62 – Fiona Kelly Mendelssohn: Symphony No.4 in A major, Beethoven: in D, Op.61 – Tim Lines Op.90 ‘Italian’ Alto Saxophone – Shaun Thompson Jonian Ilias Kadesha: violin – Alan Thomas Mateusz Moleda: conductor Percussion – Scott Bywater Olivier Stankiewicz: oboe Broadcast date: 7pm, Sunday 15 November Filmed at St John’s Smith Square Broadcast date: 7pm, Thursday 15 October Filmed at Fairfield Halls, Croydon To celebrate Beethoven’s 250th anniversary, LMP performs his Coriolan Inspired by a chance wartime meeting Overture and Violin Concerto. The overture Keep in touch! between the composer and a soldier, reflects the contrasting moods of Heinrich Strauss’s spirited Oboe Concerto is in von Collin’s play – Coriolan’s aggression and If you have enjoyed this concert and londonmozartplayers fact exceptionally difficult to play, with his mother’s gentle pleading. Beethoven’s would like to hear more about the mozartplayers circular breathing a pre-requisite. This revolutionary Violin Concerto, performed London Mozart Players then do sign londonmozartplayers.com concert showcases two artists destined by rising star and YCAT artist Jonian Ilias up for our newsletter via our website. for stardom, oboist Olivier Stankiewicz and Kadesha, takes us on an exhilarating conductor Mateusz Moleda. Mendelssohn’s journey from a lyrical first movement to a jaunty Italian Symphony is an extra treat. joyous rambunctious finale. It’s a hugely You’ll get to hear first about all our The concert comes from Fairfield Halls, satisfying masterpiece, and the perfect upcoming concerts and exclusive Croydon, where London Mozart Players has work with which to salute Beethoven’s events, and enjoy priority booking enjoyed a 30-year residency. genius. and special offers. London Mozart Players Classical Club | Façade at Freemasons’ Hall

Programme notes

William Walton The Sitwell brothers then invited Walton to stay with them in London for a short while. ‘I Façade: An went for a few weeks,’ wrote Walton, ‘...and Entertainment stayed fifteen years.’

Fanfare In London, Walton devoted all his time to composition, thanks to the generous i) Hornpipe support from benefactors including Siegfried ii) En Famille Sassoon and the composer Lord Berners. iii) Mariner Man The Sitwells introduced him to distinguished iv) Long Steel Grass composers such as Stravinsky and Gershwin, v) Through Gilded Trellises and of course to their sister Edith, the poet. vi) Tango- vii) Lullaby for Jumbo Edith was eccentric and courageous, and viii) Black Mrs Behemoth was a pioneer of the avant-garde. A friend ix) Tarantella of Osbert Sitwell wrote that his sister was ‘very clever no doubt – but what is she x) A Man from a Far Countree but a façade!’. Edith was thrilled by this xi) By the Lake comment and used it as the title for her xii) Country next volume of verse. Her brothers felt xiii) musical accompaniment to the poems would xiv) Four in the Morning add colour and invited their lodger William xv) Something Lies Beyond the Scene Walton to provide this. Entitled ‘Facade, An xvi) Valse Entertainment’, Walton’s music was originally xvii) Jodelling Song scored for six instruments with sixteen of xviii) Scotch Rhapsody Edith’s poems recited over the top. xix) Popular Song Edith would often visit the Sitwell brothers’ xx) Fox-Trot ‘Old Sir Faulk’ house in Chelsea, and in 1921 her brother xi) Sir Beelzebub Osbert wrote: ‘I remember very well the rather long sessions, lasting for two or three hours, which my sister and the composer used to have, when together they wrote the words, she going over them again and again was just 16 years old when while he marked and accented them for his his first composition, a , own guidance, to show where the precise caught the attention of Sacheverell Sitwell. stress and emphasis fell, the exact inflection Sacherverell, known as ‘Sachie’, stressed or deflection’. to his older brother Osbert that he should come to Oxford to meet a ‘genius’. The first performance in 1922 was a private event given in the Sitwell family London London Mozart Players Classical Club | Façade at Freemasons’ Hall

a regular narrator for Façade. A very tricky Façade is witty and comical, and much of task. Other narrators over the years have it is heavily jazz influenced. It begins with included Richard Baker and Sir Peter Pears, a short ‘Fanfare’, followed by a sea-shanty and also the parents of our narrator Samuel style ‘Hornpipe’. Most of the music is West, Prunella Scales and original, however, Walton quotes Rossini’s (who also recorded the work with LMP). You William Tell in the ‘Swiss Jodelling Song’, can download the poems that feature in and one of Walton’s favourite numbers, ‘I Façade here. do like to be beside the seaside’ is a parody of a popular music hall song. There are The musicians at the time did not many tranquil numbers invoking birdsong appreciate the musical writing, and the and the countryside, such as ‘En Famille’ clarinettist asked the composer: ‘Mr and ‘Through Gilded Trellises’. ‘Long Steel Walton, has a clarinet player ever done you Grass’ conjures up cats at night, being an injury?’. Walton was recorded as saying described by Sitwell as ‘...a trio for two cats the performance had been ‘a shambles’. and a . It is about a couple of cats do you see, having a love affair’. Lambert The work gained much popularity admired the ‘Tarantella’ and ‘’, nonetheless, and a decade later, Walton’s numbers 9 and 16, and in the lively ‘Polka’ music was choreographed by Frederick the lyrics mention the hurdy-gurdy, an Ashton into the well-received Façade. instrument much loved by the Victorians. Walton continued to revise the work into In ‘Something Lies Beyond the Scene’, many different versions including the two the trumpet and clarinet into a jazz orchestral suites and it was finally published number. in 1951. ©Ann Criscuolo home, while the first performance to the reviews were contentious, the Manchester public was given in 1923 in the Aolian Guardian wrote ‘relentless cacophony’. Hall in London, and had an unorthodox A note on the poetry presentation. Edith recited her verses The audience consisting of ‘long haired men Edith Sitwell’s Façade contains a lot and poetics over sense and meaning through a megaphone jutting through a and short haired women’ included Virginia of outdated ideas, including racial are part of it. We’ve included Sitwell’s painted screen while Walton conducted the Woolf, Evelyn Waugh and Noel Coward and stereotypes and other language, we’d original words here to give us a fuller ensemble. demanded many encores. Noel Coward now consider offensive. understanding of the music, although we however, disliked the modern setting so acknowledge that there are arguments As the Sitwells were notorious, the event much that he made a show of stomping out That in itself is a convincing argument for avoiding using them in a performance. was given much press coverage. Mostly in the middle of the performance. for leaving her poetry well alone, and if it the reviews were appreciative of Walton’s weren’t for Walton’s music you’d probably The debate about how to treat art like music, the Daily Mail saying, ‘Walton One notable member of the audience was be unlikely to come across it outside Edith Sitwell’s is complicated and there managed to get a pleasing colour out of a young and talented student from the academic circles. But Walton composed is no easy answer, but it’s a debate that the six instruments used... and this variety Royal College of Music, Constant Lambert. his Façade to include Sitwell’s linguistic we’re happy to keep having at LMP. forms a valuable contrast to the deliberately He was keen to give advice and help with experiments – her exploration of sound monotonous chant of the recitation.’ Other the composition and was later to become London Mozart Players Classical Club | Façade at Freemasons’ Hall

1922 – annus mirabils

Although it is Façade’s first public There was a frenzy of innovation and performance in 1923 – with Edith Sitwell a feeling of ‘newness’ and freedom – reciting her poems from behind a screen artistic as well as actual, that ushered – that is perhaps more memorable, the in the cultural explosion of the ‘roaring work’s first performance was actually at twenties’ of which Walton’s Façade is a her home in 1922, a year that has been great example. called the annus mirabilis (‘miracle year’) of Anglo-American literary modernism. The year saw the almost simultaneous publication of T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, James Joyce’s Ulysses and Virginia Other firsts in 1922 Woolf’s Jacob’s Room, and there were other new adversarial ‘modernist’ works • The first radio broadcast by the BBC of art across poetry, literature, drama, art • The discovery of Tutankhamun by and music, that all challenged the cultural Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon conservatism of the time; Coctaeu’s • The USSR – the Union of Soviet Antigone, F Scott Fitzgerald’s The Socialist Republics – is created Beautiful and the Damned, Dali’s Cabaret • The new Centre Court, at Scene, to mention just a few. It was also Wimbledon, opens the year that Louis Armstrong took the • Richmal Crompton publishes the first trail from New Orleans to Chicago and Just William book made jazz the defining music of the • First successful insulin treatment of age: you can hear the jazz influences diabetes throughout Walton’s Façade.

By 1922, the death and destruction of the First World War and the Spanish Flu were over, and faster transportation and communications encouraged an outpouring of creative ideas, with artists of all genres now able to meet to compare notes and collaborate. In May 1922, Sergei Diaghilev, Igor Stravinsky, Pablo Picasso, Marcel Proust, James Joyce, Erik Satie and Clive Bell dined together in , at the Majestic hotel – one can only wonder at their conversation! London Mozart Players Classical Club | Façade at Freemasons’ Hall

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Samuel West Benjamin Pope

In a hugely varied career, Samuel West has Benjamin Pope has conducted orchestras played Hamlet and Richard II for the Royal worldwide including the Royal Philharmonic Shakespeare Company, Valentine in the and Hallé Orchestras, Dresden first production of Tom Stoppard’s Arcadia Staatskapelle, Dresden Philharmonic, at the National Theatre, Jeffrey Skilling CBSO, RSNO and Staatskapelle, to in Enron in the West End and the voice of name but a few. He has conducted many Pongo in Disney’s film 101 Dalmations II. major works for chorus and orchestra, TV work includes Siegfried Farnon in the including the requiems of Verdi, Mozart new All Creatures Great and Small, Steve and Fauré in New York and London, while McQueen’s Small Axe, W1A, The Hollow operatic highlights include works by Verdi, Crown II, Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell, Bizet, Puccini, Mascagni, Mozart and Cambridge Spies and four series of Mr Rossini. His work as a composer/arranger Selfridge. Films include Darkest Hour, On encompasses work for concert, stage, Chesil Beach, Suffragette, Van Helsing, radio, and screen, including scores for repertoire of titles, including the Harry Notting Hill, Zeffirelli’s Jane Eyre and Hyde feature film and television as well as full Potter Series, Amadeus, Star Wars, Titanic Park on Hudson. He was nominated for a length . His work for vocalist and among others; he is authorised by John BAFTA for Howards End. As a reciter, he orchestra, The Wisdom of the Animals, has Williams to conduct and mentor other has appeared with orchestras all over the been recorded by the Royal Philharmonic conductors seeking to work on the Star world and at the Proms six times, including Orchestra and Clive Rowe MBE. Benjamin Wars movies. as soloist in Walton’s Henry V at the Last also edited and mixed the audio for the At Night. Home with LMP Peter and the Wolf film. Benjamin is an experienced presenter, both live in concert and for broadcast, having Samuel has toured the West Bank three Benjamin is strongly committed to music written and presented for BBC Radio 3, and times with the Choir of London and education, recently being named Music co-hosted on BBC local radio. directed The Magic Flute for the Palestine Director of The Classical Roadshow; Mozart Festival. From 2005 to 2007 he was he is principal conductor for the Royal the artistic director of Sheffield Theatres, Philharmonic Orchestra’s education where he revived The Romans in Britain. department, RPO Resound. He is also Samuel West is an Associate Artist of the a highly experienced conductor of live RSC and Chair of the National Campaign for film screenings in concert with a large the Arts. London Mozart Players Classical Club | Façade at Freemasons’ Hall

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AVAILABLE NOW Broadcast Dates Michael Collins: Clarinet at the Clock Tower A Classical Celebration! Children’s Concert – Available to watch now Little Red Riding Hood Weber: Clarinet Quintet Venue: St John the Evangelist Thursday 29 October, 10am in Bb Major, Op.34 Prokofiev Symphony No. 1, Venue: The Great Conservatory, Syon Park Mozart: Clarinet Quintet ‘Classical’ Op.25 Patterson/Dahl Little Red Riding Hood in A Major, K.581 Schumann Cello Concerto Polly Ives narrator in A minor, Op.129 Maciej Kulakowski cello Children’s Concert – Watch online from 7pm on The Three Little Pigs Michael Collins: Clarinet Saturday 31 October, 10am Thursday 1 October at the Clock Tower Venue: The Great Conservatory, Syon Park Available to watch now Patterson/Dahl The Three Little Pigs Venue: St Pancras Clock Tower Polly Ives narrator Weber Clarinet Quintet in B-flat major, Op.34 Mozart Clarinet Quintet in A major, K.581 Stravinsky: A Soldier’s Tale Michael Collins clarinet Remembrance Sunday 8 November, 3pm Venue: Royal Hospital Chelsea Stravinsky A Soldier’s Tale Façade at Freemasons’ Hall Tama Matheson narrator Thursday 8 October 7pm William Vann conductor Little Red Riding Hood Venue: Freemasons’ Hall Walton Façade: An Entertainment Paul Patterson: music Samuel West narrator Celebrating Beethoven Benjamin Pope conductor Roald Dahl: words Sunday 15 November, 7pm Venue: St John’s Smith Square Polly Ives: narrator Beethoven Coriolan Overture, Op.62 Bows and Oboes Beethoven Violin Concerto Thursday 15 October 7pm in D major, Op.61 Venue: Fairfield Halls, Croydon Jonian Ilias Kadesha violin (YCAT soloist) Strauss Concerto in D major for Oboe and Small Orchestra, AV 144, TrV 292 Mendelssohn Symphony Watch online from 10am No.4 in A major, Op. 90, Italian on Thursday 29 October Olivier Stankiewicz oboe (YCAT soloist) Mateusz Moleda conductor London Mozart Players Classical Club | Façade at Freemasons’ Hall

Freemasons’ Hall

Freemasons’ Hall in Great Queen Street, is open to the public, with guided tours London, with its imposing Art Deco façade, showcasing the architecture and history is the headquarters of the United Grand of the building, and it welcomes more than Lodge of England and the Supreme Grand 200,000 people from across the world Chapter of Royal Arch Masons of England, through its doors every year. You may have as well as being a meeting place for many seen it feature in many of the movies and masonic lodges in the London area. It has TV series that have been filmed here such been the site of a masonic meeting place as­ The Crown, Deep State 2, Pennyworth and since 1775, and this is the third building Louis Wain, and trailers for the 2019 series on the site, with the current Hall built as a The Apprentice and Britain’s Got Talent to peace memorial to the 3,225 Freemasons name but a few. who died on active service in . As well as the Grand Temple, Freemasons’ Hall houses a further 26 highly ornate masonic temples, all in the Art Deco style. The Hall

Stravinsky: A Soldier’s Tale

Tama Matheson: narrator Will Vann: conductor

Watch online from 3pm on Remembrance Sunday 8 November London Mozart Players

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