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GREEN BAY, Wisconsin (WFRV) It seemed like a good idea for a concert mixing comedic poetry and upbeat music in an outdoor setting. The Weidner Philharmonic would perform at the Green Bay Botanical Garden on a Sunday afternoon. This does not happen. Twice.
The concert did take place on Sunday afternoon, but suddenly going through the good old standby, the Internet. The performance was broadcast live on the Weidner Center for the Performing Arts YouTube channel.
The performance took place on stage in the Cofrin Family Room at the Weidner Center, with garden-like flora and foliage.
Weidner Philharmonic on stage at Cofrin Family Hall. (Screenshot by Warren Gerds)
The applause that would have followed a performance at the Green Bay Botanical Garden was missing at the end. It was a nifty exotic literary / musical performance riding waves of fantasy.
It’s just me: I’m not sure if the performance would have been as good as an in-person outdoor experience. Edith Sitwell’s poems in Waltons Faade An Entertainment are like colorful, happy flowers. Words are pedals, thrown at the listener at different speeds, depending on the type of flower. Each pedal has a delicacy a need to be seen / heard for imagery and often humorous hues. It’s just me: outside with a reacting audience, what was said to the music could have been blurry.
Regardless, the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay Music, the Weidner Philharmonic, is her baby who found a play treasure almost 100 years ago. Fun and Funny is fun and funny no matter the weather.
A discovery: in a selection, the performer whips the words in a rhythm clipped at the speed of the chain on the music. It’s a bit like rap. From 1922.
A lot can be discovered in the performance, which remains available. Visit the Weidner Centers Facebook page to access it.
The program covers a multitude of musical styles through which composer William Walton struts, inspired by the distant thinking work of Edith Sitwell. Musicians frolic in a myriad of adventures with their instruments. With Randall Meder in a flowery shirt surely directing, they skillfully play many styles of music that they otherwise wouldn’t play. My attempts to describe the action are below, piece by piece.
Courtney Sherman. (Screenshot by Warren Gerds)
Narrator Courtney Sherman is phenomenal. It’s in the rhythms and the pauses and the nuances and the nuances and the colors and the teases and styles of the words. Courtney Sherman took seriously the diction, the voice specific to English, the loft, the clarity, the precision, the brilliance. She stages each line, adding a physicality to the words. At the same time, much is mocking, teasing, satirical of Edith Sitwell. She is often a British poetic version of Saturday Night Live. All the time, the words for her are clay to be molded all over the place according to her mood, then iced with spirit.
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Waltons Faade: An Entertainment (1922), a series of poems by Edith Sitwell (1887-1964), accompanied by instrumentals composed by William Walton (1902-1983)
Hosted by Randall Meder
The musicians:
Kortney James Flute
Rich Tengowski clarinet
Sam Stranz Saxophone
Adam Gaines trumpet
Cello Michael Dewhirst
Bill Sallak percussion
Narration Courtney Sherman
Program
Faade: entertainment
Fanfare
A cheerful little group.
+ Horn
Fast rhythm of the voice a rap!… Song like Popeyes theme.
+ With the family
Refined flute. Correct English. Concentration of serious diction. The voice is a rhythmic instrument. Floating. Teases Iowa and Minnesota.
+ Sailor man
Pipe playing with quick jokes of words.
+ Long steel grass
Fanfare type trumpet leading to a fun vocal rhythmic beat. False pretense.
Through golden trellises
Clarinette opens Playing with rhythms of voices opposed to the eccentricity of the music. The poems seem constructed for a playful and adventurous musical composition. Time dies a declaration of finality.
+ Tango Pasodobl
The voice built on the rhythm with bursts of fast-firing pieces of music like the circus returns in the decorum of mockery. The voice is composed because some syllables are notes.
+ Lullaby for Jumbo
Bewitching sounds. Slower pace of voice, on a beat.
+ Black Ms. Behemoth
Peppery sounds. And then strange strange.
+ Tarantella
Rapid rush of voices to the sounds of a circus cornball band
+ The man from a distant land
Softer tones in music and voice. Relaxed flow. Tranquility. Playfulness in vocabulary.
+ By the lake
Sweet sounds of music, cooler words to match the season, December.
+ Country dance
Dr. Seuss! in the rhythm and the play on words. A real English voice, a little holier than you.
+ Polka
Cheerful, circus, happy. Loose muted trumpet.
+ Four in the morning
Will have solemnity in the sound. A little worrying.
+ Something lurks beyond the stage
Alarm-type opening. Cheerful music / voice on a beat.
+ Vaussi
Floats on a voice-music rhythm. I wonder if Edith Sitwell would have chosen these rhythms; maybe not; she walked to own her drummer.
+ Swiss yodel song
Slower, like on tiptoes.
+ Scotch Rhapsody
Gilbert-et-Sullivan rapid voice fire. Courtney Sherman flashes a Scottish brogue.
+ Popular song
Open flute, with cello beat. Your tease, again, in a quick voice.
+ Fox Trot (Old Sir Faulk)
Struts a little in the rhythm of the voice.
Facade 2; Another entertainment
+ To flourish came the great Popinjay
Deliberately offfish cello as opener. Little talked about.
+ Aubade
Soft open clarinet, followed by cello, a comforting sound. His fiery voice as he coils into a rhythm. Dark aura. Phrase: the cutting rain catches the brain. Voice alone to change. Closing of clarinet and cello.
+ March
The drums kick off, in rat-a-tat action in music and voice, with a word ending in a suspended note.
+ Madame Mouse Trot
Your dread. And a zipper of a cat. A story of cat and mouse.
+ The octogenarian
Appropriate voice enveloping an image with a Fellini or mythological type image.
+ Gardener Janus catches a naiad
Lighter music quality. Change the rhythm of sounds and images.
+ Water festival
Cheerful, with a rhythm, the voice dances in a waltz.
+ Said King Pompey
Mockingbird in movement of music and voice.
+ When Sir Belzébuth
Adding the flourishing of the voice.
The performance ends. Some arcs. No applause.
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