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.

Lambert's Façade, Sargent's Wand of Youth

Tonight, two versions of Walton's Façade music from Constant Lambert, plus music of Elgar conducted by Sir Malcolm Sargent.

Side one of the LP above contains the two Façade instrumental suites for orchestra, as devised by the composer in 1926 and 1938. (Lambert intermixes the numbers of the two suites.) The second side has the first of two Wand of Youth suites that Elgar devised from his earliest compositions.

Walton by Michael Ayrton

Façade has a complex performance history. Originally devised as a family entertainment by poet Edith Sitwell, her brothers and their friend William Walton, its first public performance came in 1923. The audience saw only a curtain painted with a head. Sitwell and the instrumentalists were backstage, with the poet declaiming her words through a megaphone poking out of the mouth, to the tune of Walton's sophisticated musical parodies. This upper-class leg-pulling created a succès de scandale in certain circles, making enough of a stir that it became a mini-industry in itself, with Sitwell producing additional poems and Walton composing more music. Eventually there were ballet versions as well, and Walton was adding new pieces as late as the 1970s.

Lambert by Christopher Wood

Constant Lambert was closely associated with Façade. He appears to have been the first reciter other than Sitwell herself to present the work, on the occasion of its second performance in 1926. In 1929, he and Sitwell were the speakers in a Decca recording conducted by Walton. I have transferred that version from an LP dub in my collection and added it to the download as a bonus. Lambert was a remarkably facile reciter, who was well matched with Sitwell.

Lambert returned to the recording studios with Façade in 1950, this time as conductor of the  orchestral suites found on the LP above. These give a good impression of Walton's musical achievement, with characteristically fine performances from the vintage Philharmonia.

Sargent by Gerald Festus Kelly

Elgar's Wand of Youth suite could hardly be more different from the Walton-Sitwell "entertainment,"
although it was composed within 15 years of Façade. The Edwardians had a tendency to romanticize youth; several of Elgar's works display this characteristic. (See my post from several years ago discussing The Starlight Express, for an example.) Even so, it would be hard to dispute the charm, warmth and appeal of Elgar's heartfelt music.

Elgar himself conducted both suites for a 1928 recording. I believe the first suite's next appearance on record was in 1949, in a version directed by Eduard van Beinum. The Sargent effort with the Liverpool Philharmonic came only a few months later. Liverpool did not have a top-flight orchestra at the time, but they are in better fettle here than they were a few years earlier in the Horoscope recordings I recently featured.

Edith Sitwell with her brother (Osbert, I believe) in 1922