Two English composers, making an impact sixty years apart. Alpesh Chauhan conducts.
William Walton in 1928 Photo: Wikimedia Commons, Fair Use
Thomas Adès Photo: Brian Voce
ADÈS: Three-piece Suite, from Powder Her Face
Thomas Adès’ 1995 chamber opera, Powder Her Face, based on a real-life 1963 sensational divorce and sex scandal in England was commissioned by London’s Almeida Opera and the production was met with a mixture of outrage for the content, and admiration for the music.
The subject of the opera is the ‘Dirty Duchess’, Margaret Campbell, Duchess of Argyll whose exploits were the stuff of scandal and gossip in Britain in 1963 during her divorce proceedings.
The music is a mix of 1930s foxtrots, waltzes and tangos, combining influences ranging from Alban Berg, Stravinsky and Benjamin Britten to the tangos of Piazzolla.
In 2007 Ades extracted three orchestral numbers from the opera and published them as ‘Dances from Powder Her Face’ and the Overture, Waltz and Finale form the Three-piece Suite.
WALTON: Symphony No 1 in Bb minor
William Walton's first symphony didn’t exactly burst onto the musical scene; he was a very slow worker. He struggled on the work for nearly four years, with the first performance in 1934 comprising only the first three movements. The premiere of the completed symphony had to wait until 1936.
Why did it take so long? At the time, the crack was made that "the trouble was that Willie changed girlfriends between movements". That was possibly not such a facetious comment since Walton himself admitted that the second movement was provoked by the acrimonious break-up of a passionate love affair. The marking on the music is Presto con malizia (with malice).
The final movement of the symphony – an upbeat and joyful finale – came after he had met and fallen in love with Lady Alice Winborne, a Viscountess and society hostess 22 years older than him.
Walton later admitted that music of such searing intensity came from deep within. The Bb Minor Symphony really did have its inspiration in events of Walton’s private life.
Recorded by RNZ Concert, Auckland Town Hall, 8 September 2022
Producer: Tim Dodd
Engineer: Rangi Powick
