The “entertainment” Façade, in which Sitwell’s poems are recited over an instrumental accompaniment by Walton, was first given privately in the Sitwell family’s London house in January 1922. The first public performance was given at the Aeolian Hall, London, in June 1923. On both occasions, the author recited the verse and the composer conducted the ensemble. The public premiere of the entertainment was a succès de scandale. The performance consisted of Sitwell’s verses, which she recited through a megaphone protruding through a decorated screen, while Walton conducted an ensemble of six players in his accompanying music.
Walton made changes to the instrumentation for the entertainment between its premiere and the publication of the first printed score nearly thirty years later, but in both 1922–23 and 1951 he scored for six players. The published score specifies flute (doubling piccolo), clarinet (doubling bass clarinet), alto saxophone, trumpet, percussion, and cello. Walton quotes a range of earlier composers in his score, from Rossini (the William Tell overture appears in the Swiss Jodelling Song) to George Grossmith (whose comic song, “See me dance the polka”, is present throughout Walton’s Polka).
In the Sitwell-Walton Façade there are three poems, “Through Gilded Trellises,” “A Man from a far Country” (from Sitwell’s The Sleeping Beauty), and “Tarantella” (never formally published by Sitwell), that do not feature in her published edition of Façade. As the performing version frequently recited in public and recorded for the gramophone by Sitwell included the Tarantella, it may be assumed that she did not require the musical version to adhere strictly to the text of the published poems.
In the 1970s, Walton released some further numbers, under the title Façade Revived, later revising, dropping and adding numbers, as Façade II. When the most comprehensive edition of the Sitwell-Walton versions was released in 1993 (on a CD featuring the voice of the Façade specialist Pamela Hunter with the Melologos ensemble) the number of poems had risen to 42. Pamela Hunter recites all these poems on the 1993 CD, including the nine for which there are no extant musical accompaniments.
After this recording was made in 1993, evidence of additional numbers that were included in the June 1923 performance of Façade came to light. As noted by Stewart Craggs, a copy of the programme for this performance emerged which indicated that 28 poems by Sitwell were set by Walton, including four that were previously unknown, having been lost and forgotten in the intervening years: Clown Argheb’s Song, Dark Song, Gone Dry and Serenade. A detailed chronology of the various versions of Façade has been given by Stephen Lloyd, who notes that Serenade may have been a recited poem or a purely instrumental piece.
