'Valse'

from Façade

General Information – Performing Forces – Manuscript – Publication – Arrangements – Recordings – Text

General Information:

Composition:

First Performance:
12 June 1923

Text:
Dame Edith Sitwell (1887–1964)
Click here for complete text.

Duration:
About 3 minutes

Performing Forces:

Solo reciter

Flute (doubling piccolo), clarinet in B-flat (doubling bass clarinet in B-flat), alto saxophone in E-flat – trumpet in C – percussion (suspended cymbal, side drum, triangle, Chinese blocks, castanets, tambourine) – 1 or 2 cellos

Manuscript:

Publication:

Oxford University Press. Published as the sixteenth number in Façade.

Arrangements:

Arranged for solo piano, by the composer, ca. 1928.
Dedication: "to Mrs. Beverley Baxter"
Publication: Oxford University Press. Score, 1928, 019 3739240, discontinued.

Recordings:

Text:

'Daisy and lily,
Lazy and silly,
Walk by the shore of the wan grassy sea, —
Talking once more 'neath a swan-bosomed tree.
Rose castles,
Tourelles,
Those bustles
Where swells
Each foam-bell of ermine,
They roam and determine
What fashions have been and what fashions will be, —
What tartan leaves born,
What crinolines worn.
By Queen Thetis,
Pelisses
Of tarlatine blue,
Like the thin plaided leaves that the castle crags grew,
Or velours d'Afrande:
On the water-gods' land
Her hair seemed gold trees on the honey-cell sand
When the thickets gold spangles, on deep water seen,
Were like twanging guitar and like cold mandoline,
And the nymphs of great caves,
With hair like gold waves,
Of Venus, wore tarlatine.
Louise and Charlottine
(Boreas' daughters)
And the nymphs of deep waters,
The nymph Taglioni,
Grisi the ondine,
Wear plaided Victoria and thin Clementine
Like the crinolined waterfalls;
Wood-nymphs wear bonnets, shawls,
Elegant parasols
Floating are seen.
The Amazons wear balzarine of jonquille
Beside the blond lace of a deep-falling ril;
Through glades like a nun
They run from and shun
The enormous and gold-rayed rustling sun;
And the nymphs of the fountains
Descend from the mountains
Like elegant willows
On their deep barouche pillows,
In cashmere Alvandar, barège Isabelle,
Like bells of bright water from clearest wood-well.
Our élégantes favouring bonnets of blond,
The stars in their apiaries,
Sylphs in their aviaries,
Seeing them, spangle these, and the sylphs fond
From their aviaries fanned
With each long fluid hand
The manteaux espagnols,
Mimic the waterfalls
Over the long and the light summer land.

                – – – – – –

So Daisy and Lily,
Lazy and silly,
Walk by the shore of the wan grassy sea,
Talking once more 'neath a swan-bosomed tree.
Rose castles,
Tourelles,
Those bustles!
Mourelles
Of the shade in their train follow.
Ladies, how vain, — hollow, —
Gone is the sweet shallow, —
Gone, Philomel!'

— Dame Edith Sitwell (1887–1964)

WilliamWalton.net – Catalogue of Works – Solo Vocal Music – Façade