Edith Sitwell's 1949 Façade

The other day I was listening to some early-30s radio recordings of George Gershwin performing his own music, and was struck by how different his rendition of the first piano Prelude was from the version done by his follower Oscar Levant in the 1940s. Levant makes the piece sound like an Americanized Satie, while Gershwin shows it to be from the ragtime tradition.

I'm probably not alone in preferring Levant's evocative playing to Gershwin's brisk run-through - even though there is something that tells me I should prefer the composer in his own work.

This, too, is the case with William Walton's settings of Edith Sitwell's poetry. Do I have to like Walton's own 1929 recording of Façade, with Sitwell and Constant Lambert as reciters, recently presented here? Or can I admit to a strong predilection for this 1949 outing by Sitwell and a chamber orchestra led by the young Frederik (here spelled Frederick) Prausnitz?

In truth, I also prefer Dame Edith's recitation on this 10-inch LP to her efforts 20 years before. While she does not have the breath control of her younger self, she seems more engaged with Prausnitz's flexible reading of the score.

1948 Horst P. Horst portrait of Edith Sitwell

Then again, this is not to say that Walton would approve. Reader JAC, who knows the piece intimately from having performed it several times, commented on the 1929 version: "Study of the score reveals that Dame Edith never mastered the specific rhythms that Walton wrote, particularly the syncopations; sometimes she wasn't even in the right measure."

Columbia's 1949 recording was designed to be a 25th anniversary edition of Façade's first public performance. The cover notes by Osbert Sitwell describe its genesis and the scandal that attended that premiere. Columbia's Goddard Lieberson indulges in some hyperbole about Sitwell, and the whole thing is presented as being produced "in cooperation with the Museum of Modern Art," although it's not clear what's MOMA contribution had been. The very good recording comes from Columbia's 30th Street Studio.

Columbia engaged the wonderful Jim Flora for its cover. His idiosyncratic drawings are well in tune with the spirit of the proceedings, with his letter forms a particular delight.

Frederik Prausnitz

A final note: this may have been conductor Prausnitz's first record session. He went on to be typed, at least in the recording studio, as a 20th-century specialist. His next record, also for Columbia, was of Carl Ruggles, in 1954. He went on to conduct scores by Wolpe, Sessions, Schoenberg, Riegger, Musgrave, Gerhard, Dallapiccola, Carter and Busoni for Columbia, EMI and Argo.