Faade Entertainments - William Walton

The William Walton Edition score of Facade Entertainments brought together for the first time all thirty-three extant Walton settings of the Edith Sitwell poems that were written and performed under this title. This version of Facade Entertainments reproduces the music content of the full score and presents it in a practical A4 format.

Sir William Walton was born in Oldham, Lancashire in 1902, the son of a choirmaster and a singing-teacher. He became a chorister at Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, and then an undergraduate at the University. His first composition to attract attention was a piano quartet written at the age of sixteen. At Oxford he made the acquaintance of the Sitwells who gave him friendship, moral and financial support and in 1922 he collaborated with Edith in devising the
entertainment Faade. Less than ten years later, Osbert prepared the text of another masterwork, Belshazzar's Feast. From 1922 to 1927 Walton began to spend an increasing amount of time abroad, notably in Switzerland and Italy. The war years were devoted mainly to writing film and ballet scores and he became
established as amongst the greatest composers for the screen.