Suite from "The Wise Virgins"
What God hath done is rightly done
Lord, hear my longing
See what His love can do
Ah! how ephemeral
Sheep may safely graze
Praise be to God
Unlike the older generation of British composers, William Walton associated from an early age with some of the most flamboyant bohemians of his time. Taken up at 19 as an "elected brother" of the famously eccentric Sitwell family, he was at ease in the worlds of theatre, dance and the visual arts to an extent unusual for a British musician. The painter Rex Whistler, the aesthete Lord Berners, the choreographer Frederick Ashton and the actor Laurence Olivier all mingled in his social circle; by the age of 25 he’d already been lampooned by Noel Coward. So he was the natural choice of composer whenever any of these artists planned something requiring music, and after some brilliant early experiments (the entertainment "Façade" with Edith Sitwell from 1922-26, the use of his music as interludes in two of Diaghilev’s ballets) he finally came together with Frederick Ashton to create a complete ballet early in 1940. Ashton had already choreographed the orchestral version of "Façade" in 1931; now he had been inspired by the melody of J.S. Bach’s chorale "Sheep may safely graze" and proposed a one-act ballet for Sadler’s Wells on the biblical story of the Five Wise and Five Foolish Virgins. The composer Constant Lambert chose the music; Walton was to orchestrate it. Whistler designed the sets, and the finished ballet was premiered in London on 24th April 1940.
The music of "The Wise Virgins" simply comprises nine movements from Bach cantatas re-orchestrated by Walton; the concert suite uses six of these. Pre-war composers did this sort of thing all the time, but by the 1970s arrangements like these had become the worst fashion-blunder a composer could commit. Happily, in the last decade, fashion has swung back again and audiences can once more enjoy hearing how great 20th century composers "re-imagined" their baroque idols. Elgar’s and Harty’s Handel, Stokowski’s Bach and Strauss’s Couperin are all back, and all far more extreme cases than Walton’s "Wise Virgins". If any composer can withstand re-arrangement, it is surely J.S. Bach, and in any case, Walton’s orchestration is a model of restraint beside, say, Henry Wood’s version of Bach’s D minor Toccata and Fugue – the composer Humphrey Searle described it as "tasteful but effective, successfully avoiding both archaism and over-modernity". Although Walton uses a full modern orchestra, all the leading parts are given to instruments that Bach would have known. Where he does add new colours, it’s done with a real touch of magic; for instance, the harp and solo violin that take the place of harpsichord and voice in the introduction to "Sheep may safely graze". Walton clearly loved and respected Bach’s originals – but he was, after all, preparing them for the stage, and so he applied the musical equivalent of a touch of makeup and some subtle lighting.
R. G. Bratby 2001
Copyright Classical Notes.co.uk 2000
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