And Who Shall Go to the Ball?
And What Shall Go to the Ball?
Scott Walker
Released: October 1, 2007. Label: 4AD
And Who Shall Go to the Ball? And What Shall Go to the Ball? is an EP by Scott Walker. It presents his 24-minute, four-movement score for a piece of the same name, commissioned by the contemporary disabled and non-disabled dance company CandoCo. Choreographed by Rafael Bonachela, the piece was staged at London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall in 2007.
Walker described his music in the programme notes. “Apart from a slow movement given over to solitude, the music is full of edgy and staccato shapes or cuts, reflecting how we cut up the world around us as a consequence of the shape of our bodies. How much of a body does an intelligence need to be potentially socialised in an age of ever-developing AI? This is but one of many questions that informed the approach to the project.”
In the EP liner notes, Rafael Bonachela wrote: “ Scott Walker and I met about three or four times before I started to choreograph the piece. In our second meeting Scott spoke about the concepts he was using when making the music; images of man against machine, a dysfunctional world, space being cut through by sound and movement. There were musical sections that struck me immediately as connecting to the dynamics between particular dancers and I wanted these in turn to contribute to sections of the work. In a twisted ballroom bodies are laid out on an empty dance floor and entangled in dysfunctional chairs. The dancers slice furiously through an inescapable space, holding onto one another in contorted embraces and haunting holds. But in the end, everything I have to say is in the piece.”
The EP was issued by Walker’s label, 4AD, in a limited run of 2,500 copies.
Track listing
And Who Shall Go to the Ball?: 1st Movement 6:36
And Who Shall Go to the Ball?: 2nd Movement 5:29
And Who Shall Go to the Ball?: 3rd Movement 6:24
And Who Shall Go to the Ball?: 4th Movement 6:10
Credits
Written by Scott Walker
Produced by Scott Walker
Co-produced by Peter Walsh
Orchestrated by Mark Warman, Scott Walker
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Written by Scott Walker
Produced by Scott Walker
Co-produced by Peter Walsh
Orchestrated by Mark Warman, Scott Walker
Orchestra Conducted by Mark Warman
Orchestra Recorded by Steve Price at Angel Recording Studios
Recorded at Metropolis Studios, Angel Studios and Air-Edel Studios
Assistant at Air-Edel Mick Taylor
Assistant Engineer at Metropolis Matt Paul
Liner Notes Rafael Bonachela, Scott Walker
Art Direction, Design Vaughan Oliver
Design Assistance Chris Bigg
Original Letter Art Philpott
Original Concept Scott Walker
Directed by Rafael Bonachela
Choreography by Rafael Bonachela
Choreographer's Assistant Stine Nilsen
Commissioned by The South Bank Centre with Support From London Sinfonietta
Production Designer Torsten Neeland
Lighting Designer Guy Hoare
Orchestra London Sinfonietta
Programming by Mark Warman, Peter Walsh
Alto Saxophone, Flute Bradley Grant
Cello, Soloist Philip Sheppard
Percussion Alasdair Malloy
Soprano Saxophone, Flute Andy Findon
Gillian Moore,
Southbank Centre director of music
In 2006, I was artistic director of the London Sinfonietta. We were approached by Scott Walker’s management because he was interested in writing a score for a contemporary dance piece. Walker’s voice – his full baritone on the Walker Brothers The Sun Ain’t Gonna Shine Anymore and Make it Easy on Yourself – was a madeleine that could transport me in an instant back to my 1960s childhood. But I also knew that he’d gone on to do other things, that he was a composer and that albums such as Tilt showed an experimental bent. With the help of my colleague Julia Carruthers, head of dance at the Southbank Centre, where Walker had curated the Meltdown festival in 2000, we enlisted the choreographer Rafael Bonachela and Candoco Dance Company, which is made up of disabled and non-disabled dancers. Walker’s score was titled And Who Shall Go to the Ball? When it arrived, it surpassed all our expectations: dark and twisted with wailing, clustery strings and percussion, atonal jabs, thick dissonances. This was frightening music. Bonachela and Candoco responded with an equally dark and uncompromising choreography. I noticed recently that And Who Shall Go the Ball? made it on to the GCSE curriculum. I’m surprised it was allowed.
“There are definitely two kinds of sessions: those at which we’re buttons being pressed, but his sessions were different ones, where you felt you could give a little bit more. You know, you gave 100% on others but you gave 120% for him because you thought it might be appreciated!”
Andy Findon in conversation with Mark Warman
“A blast of red-hot physicality powered by a phenomenal score”
The Independent on Sunday, September 2007