BUTTERWORTH. A Shropshire Lad*. Roy Henderson (baritone), Gerald Moore (piano), FINZI. Dies natalis, Op. at. Joan Cross (soprano),, Boyd Neel String Orchestra conducted by Boyd Neal. WALTON. Facadef—excerpts: Long Steel Grass; Tango; Black Mrs Bohemoth; Tarantella; A Man from a Far Countree; Polka; Valse; Yodelling Song; Scotch Rhapsody; Popular Song; Fox-trot "Old Sir Faulk". Dame Edith Sitwell, Constant Lambert (readers) with instrumentalists conducted by Sir William Walton. Decca Treasury it ECM834 (2'65), *Recorded June and August 1941, matrix nos. DR5944-1; 5945-1; 5946-1; 5947-1, From M506-7 (11/41); tOctober 1946. AR10815-2; 10816-3; 10817-3; 10818-1; 10819-1; 10820-1. K1645-7(6/48); fM A392-7A; 31 7-7A; 723-2A; 31 9-7A. November 28th, 1929. T124-5 (3/30). tRecorded under the auspices of the British Council.

The record promises a pleasure it does not quite provide, and the reason is the unsatisfactory quality of the transfers. The first trumpet notes of Façade flutter fearfully and suggest that what is to follow may prove intolerable. It is not quite that, but the job could surely have been better done. In the Dies natalis the sound disappoints also, but in a different way. Here it is as though everything possible has been done to eliminate the roundness and warmth which Decca recordings of that period had: what remains is a rather hard, over-bright sound, without depth and body. Several of the transfers in this Treasury series have been of indifferent quality, but this one is particularly regrettable because the three recordings taken from the Decca archive make up such an attractive programme.

The original Façade recording has its place in gramophone history, for here was a company enterprising enough to record a controversial modern work with its very first performers.. Edith Sitwell did of course record the complete Fafade later on LP for Decca in the mid 1950s (this is available now on (0 ECS560, 9/70), though with Anthony Collins and not Walton conducting. That performance had a clarity which its predecessor could not rival, and in Sir Peter Pears the more 'difficult' poems found a better reciter than Constant Lambert, the sound of whose rather effete voice still surprises. But in the 1929 records the poetess was so much younger, able to provide a mor extensive vocal range, and one senses that she was still excited by the poems and by the whole venture. The difference is clear in "Black Mrs Behemoth", a wonderfully vivid experience in the early recording. There is also the pleasant period flavour of the sound; like a classic jazz record of its time, it has something which is not quite reprodueable in another age.

For the rest, Roy Henderson brings clear diction and well-defined tone to his ever-soslightly prim account of Butterworth's Housman songs, and Joan Cross, her voice just beyond its best days, shows herself as admirable a stylist as ever in the Finzi. Comparison with the recent recording by Philip Langridge and Richard Hickox (Argo ZRG896, 5/79) is interesting here: Boyd Ned's quicker tempo in the "Danza" and slower one in the "Arioso" contribute to the expressiveness of the performance, and we are reminded that, preferable as the tenor voice is in some ways, it was a soprano (Elsie Suddaby) who first sang the cantata. J.B.S.