Getty is a Romantic through and through; had he been born a century earlier he would have fit right in with the pre-Raphaelites and their cohorts throughout the arts, and their idols including Keats, whom he sets twice here. Most of the poems here explore themes of unrequited or distantly recalled loves and beauty fled but passionately celebrated in memory. The composer's style is chordal and harmonic; melismatic, complicated contrapuntal lines are not for him, let alone unusual vocal effects. What he does so very well is the clear presentation of the text, gratefully set for the voices and illustrated with music that faultlessly matches the mood of the narrative and its dramatic content. He is no mean poet himself; the longest song here, and two others are to his own texts. The Old Man in the Night takes up a quarter of the disc in its reflective, autumnal tale of the memory of a past passion as night closes in on an old man's life, while Beauty Come Dancing expands on the themes of its title, making it a perfect foil to Masefield's Ballet Russe. Dowson's Cynara and Keats' Belle Dame sans merci show the composer's range, their darker undertones bringing out searching harmonies and original, descriptive orchestration, while Byron's Assyrian cohorts descend on Jerusalem with fine rhythmic vigor and high romantic drama. Texts included. Netherlands Radio Choir, Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra; ?James Gaffigan.

Dowson's Cynara (so memorably set by Delius), Byron's The destruction of Sannacherib (by Mussorgsky, no less), and a whole raft of other composers who have engaged with Keats' La belle dame sans merci – Armstrong Gibbs, Hadley, O'Neill, Scott and Stanford in particular. All the works on this disc were written between the years 2009 and 2015, and therefore postdate the choral music by Getty featured on earlier releases.

The title of this collection, however, comes from one of Getty's own poems, Beauty come dancing, as well as the two opening tracks The old man in the night and The old man in the morning which appear to be autobiographical in inspiration. The first is by a very substantial margin the longest single work on this disc (over a quarter of an hour) and the orchestral accompaniment is vivid even though the xylophone, tubular bells and vibraphone are too prominent in the mix. It seems odd that the quoted voice of the old man is taken by the men of the chorus rather than a soloist, but the contrasts of the poem are nevertheless well reflected in music that responds with sympathy to the dialogue and ruminations of the narrator. All one might wish for is a more substantial melodic profile rather than the Janáçek-like ostinato which underlines some of the word-setting, although the almost Brucknerian climax towards the end is impressive. Similar musical material is featured in The old man in the morning, which is a rather beautiful miniature written four years later.

The setting of John Masefield's Ballet russe has a sense of rhythmic gawkiness which perhaps sits rather oddly with its subject, but then the poem itself, with its juxtaposition of a “Chopin air” with “Roland's horn”, is peculiar in its own right. The arrangement of Shenandoah also has its unexpected moments, with an orchestral accompaniment that seems to lead an independent existence and which in the third verse provides a really chilly frisson at the words “I love your daughter”. By comparison the setting of Keats' There was a naughty boy is relatively conventional, with the orchestral accompaniment reduced to sporadic commentary on the rhythmic delivery of the choral text. The setting of Sarah Teasdale's Those who love the best is beautifully restrained in the opening verse and builds to a thrilling climax in the second, a piece that deserves to be taken up by female choirs around the world.

On the other hand, Getty's setting of his own poem Beauty come dancing seems curiously bitty, an odd choice to headline the title of the disc. The orchestral accompaniment has a nicely sly sense of rhythm, like Prokofiev at his most cheeky, but we need a greater sense of connection between the verses. What is missing is immediately clear in the setting of Edwin Arlington Robinson's For a dead lady which begins with an attractive oboe melody over harp accompaniment; even the pseudo-Janáçek violin ostinati blend unobtrusively into the setting, despite once again the over-amplified tuned percussion (here an unbelievably loud celesta). The return of the oboe melody at the final words is effective, but one might have welcomed a more conclusive ending.

The final three items in this collection consist of the settings of Byron, Dowson, and Keats to which I referred earlier. The Assyrian comes down like the wolf on the fold with all the expected violence that one might anticipate (it follows with rude directness on the quiet ‘fade' of For a dead lady) and once again the Janáçek-like ostinato figure is prominently on display. Not altogether surprisingly the best passages in the choral setting of Cynara are those which echo Delius's unforgettable treatment of phrases such as “There fell thy shadow, Cynara!” but then yet again we hear the same “Janáçek” repeated motif in the violins. The wind chords at the words “I have been faithful to thee, Cynara, in my fashion” sound expectedly churchy in this context before the insistent ostinato returns yet again. The ending of the poem, with the woodwind chords, is very sudden; no sense here of the Delian dying fall.

The Keats setting is more adventurous, as well as being the second-longest piece in the collection. Sometimes the treatment of the words is undesirably brisk, but then we encounter a particularly memorable phrase – as in the first verse at “And no birds sing” which echoes a passage from Holst's similarly Keats-based Choral Symphony. The woodwind squawks as the fairy maiden appears are also effective, but then we suddenly find ourselves back in the field of the “Janáçek” violin ostinato which builds to a furious climax at the appearance of the “pale warriors”. The persistent appearance of this ‘motto theme' is clearly intentional, but its significance eludes me; it serves to bind the three final settings together, but its sheer ubiquity is obtrusive when they are heard in immediate succession as here. The final bars, with the return of the ‘fairy maiden' woodwind, are however very effective.

The recording is generally well balanced even if the chorus is somewhat backwardly positioned in the modern manner; although their diction is clear, we do need the provided texts to keep abreast of what is going on especially in the more heavily-scored passages of The old man in the night and elsewhere. There are some peculiar pronunciations, such as “granary” in the final Keats setting delivered as “grainery”, but nothing to perturb the listener more than briefly.

The presentation of this disc, as is usual with Pentatone's releases of Getty, is impressively lavish: a forty-page illustrated booklet includes the full texts as well as information on the music, albeit in English only. Those who have enjoyed Getty's earlier discs of choral music will find these settings irresistible. But there are only three items here – the quirky setting of Shenandoah, the lyrical For a dead lady, and the superlative Those who love the best – which rival the earlier Pentatone recording containing Getty's Young America and Victorian Scenes, which really are something rather special.

These qualities are airily and engagingly conveyed by the Netherlands Radio Choir and the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by James Gaffigan, and are evident in Getty's own poetry, the source for the album's first two offerings. “The Old Man in the Night” showcases the full instrumental and vocal ensembles in a gentle and reflective account of an interchange between two characters at opposite ends of their lives. “The Old Man in the Morning,” written more recently, elicits plaintive accompaniment on English horn, harp, and strings. Love is an abiding theme here for both poets and composer, as is dance, first manifest in Getty's take on John Masefield's “Ballet Russe.” The poem references Chopin, and Getty, in the liner notes, has stated his “aim for tunes Chopin might have written, but didn't.”

Like his Polish pianist-composer predecessor, Getty's pacing and coloration sound choreographed, the arpeggiated piano sparkling at the center of the choral display, partnered by harp and strings. “Shenandoah,” though its lyric lies in folklore, may be one of Getty's most affecting single pieces to date. The refrain's “rolling river” is audible in the swells and runs, the harmonic arrangement alluring and rustically fresh and unaffected.

The affect for John Keats's “There Was a Naughty Boy” is appropriately jumpy and playful, in short lines like a child's story song. The only setting for women's chorus is matched to “Those Who Love the Most,” the only poem by a woman. The music invokes the magic in the poet's mythic name-checks and palpably positions love as triumphant. For the album's titular “Beauty Come Dancing,” from a poem by the composer, Getty trickily pairs iambic pentameter with waltz time, with giddy accompaniment by flutes, clarinets, celesta, and strings. The waltz sobers up for Edwin Arlington Robinson's “For a Dead Lady,” in an alluring setting for chamber orchestra that ends artfully unresolved.

Another compelling change of scene on Lord Byron's epic of “The Destruction of Sennacherib,” perhaps the most evocative of the masterful mustering of the individual sections and instruments of the orchestra apparent in some of Getty's operatic writing. It's arguably also the composer's closest approach to advanced 20th-century chromatic modulations and anguished voicings. The tale of “Cynara” is the work of “Decadent” poet and novelist Ernest Christopher Dawson, but Getty's deployment of men's chorus and chamber orchestra, effectively dramatic, honor's the poet's febrile longing but avoids the garish. Keats returns for the closer, “La belle dame sans merci,” with which Getty takes on another of his favorite roles, unabashedly sustaining single notes or chords when they serve his role as a storyteller. In an ironic twist on Keats's “wither'd sedge” where “no birds sing,” Getty commands a clarinet to sing anyway. All the poetry appears in the album's booklet, making for a quite satisfying celebration of two forms of creative expression.

Getty is a self-described conservative, both in the poetry that inspires him and the music he writes. The only living poet in the collection and the one who wrote the title piece and two other songs on the CD is himself. This is not the first time he has set his own words to music. Like Wagner, whom Getty admires, he supplies his own librettos for his operas: “Plump Jack” (based on Shakespeare's Falstaff), “Usher House” (based on Edgar Allan Poe's short story “The Fall of the House of Usher”), and “The Canterville Ghost” (based on Oscar Wilde's novella).

The opening piece, and the longest and most complex work in the collection, is “The Old Man in the Night.” The lyrics deal with two men, one young and other elderly, both supposedly representing the author at different times in his life. Much of the poem is an evocation of beauty, ending with: “Beauty beyond all keeping, worth all cost/O beautiful and merciless my love.”

“The Old Man in the Morning” shows a more hopeful new day, where it is “all spring, all morning, just as then.”

John Keats (1795–1821) is Getty's favorite poet, and John Masefield (1878–1967) his second favorite. Both are represented in his collection.

Masefield, like Getty, was a ballet aficionado and, in “Ballet Russe,” Beauty returns in the form of a ballerina, “all that a boyhood loves and manhood needs.” The first line of the poem mentions Chopin, and the music suggests the style of the earlier composer.The title piece on the CD, with words by Getty, has all nature dancing, “when the world is young” and “loud with music [and] mirth.”

“Shenandoah” is Getty's choral arrangement of the American folk song. He had written an earlier arrangement for soprano Lisa Delan, who has been a frequent interpreter of his music.“There Was a Naughty Boy” is a lighthearted poem by Keats, and Getty's setting is equally playful.

Sara Teasdale's (1884–1933) “Those Who Love the Most” (the only poem on the album by a female writer) is a look backward to the era of courtly love, with references to Guinevere, Deirdre, Iseult, and Heloise. Edward Arlington Robinson's “For a Dead Lady” is a melancholy waltz, wondering at the end, “Of what inexorable cause/Makes Time so vicious in his reaping.”

“The Destruction of Sennacherib” by Lord Byron (1788–1824) is a dramatic piece, beginning with an attack by the Assyrian army and concluding with the grieving widows of Ashur. Ernest Christopher Dowson's (1867–1900) “Cynara” is performed by a male chorus and orchestra. At one point the poet exclaims, “I have been faithful to thee, Cynara! In my fashion.”  This poem was supposedly the inspiration for Cole Porter's song “Always True to You in My Fashion” from the musical “Kiss Me, Kate.” Getty's musical setting is far more serious in tone than the Broadway composer's.Keats's “La Belle Dame sans Merci” again recalls knightly love and ends with the poet alone “where no birds sing.”

The Netherlands Radio Choir under Chorus Master Klaas Stok clearly articulates the text, although where the orchestra reaches an occasional crescendo, the words are sometimes obscured. Pentatone helpfully supplies the poems along with an essay by Jeff Kaliss, a statement from the composer, and information about the choir, the superb Netherlands Radio Philharmonic Orchestra, as well as its conductor James Gaffigan.“Beauty Comes Dancing” attests to Getty's facility for setting poetry to music.

Fortunately, Getty was musically trained the old-fashioned way, not meaning simply that he writes tonally but meaning that he learned how to create themes and develop them logically, and this is what one hears in this excellent new collection. As in the case of his solo vocal music, Getty is particularly adept at writing for voices, even in choral settings. Unlike his song cycle of Emily Dickinson songs, The White Election, which was purposely written in a simple strophic manner to simulate Dickinson singing and playing the piano herself, the harmonic language of these works is more sophisticated, like that of his excellent opera Usher House.

Interestingly, some of these pieces are set to poems by Getty himself such as the first, The Old Man in the Night, the longest and most complex piece on this album. The text concerns two men at opposite ends of their lives, which Getty claims are his own young and old selves (he is now 80…hard to believe, considering the youthful enthusiasm of his composition style). The Netherlands Radio Choir is a fine group of singers but not very clear in their diction; without the lyrics printed in the booklet, I wouldn't have a clue what they were singing. Only a few consonants are clearly articulated (mostly from the women, not the men), which leads to a confused muddle of sound rather than a succession of words. On the other hand, James Gaffigan is an excellent conductor, bringing out the power and sweep of Getty's music superbly, and the orchestra plays with commitment and drive behind him.

Although a separate piece with a different text, The Old Man in the Morning almost sounds like a second movement to the first piece. No, the music is not exactly the same, but the mood, the rhythm and the feel of the music make it sound like, perhaps, an early draft of the first piece, at least musically speaking. By contrast, Ballet Russe, set to a text by John Masefield that begins, “The gnome from the moonland plays the Chopin air, the ballerina glides out of the wings, like all the Aprils of forgotten Springs.” Perhaps a bit more variety in dynamics contrasts could have been put into the music, but again, it is very effective in its own way.

The fourth piece is Getty's arrangement of the famous tune Shenandoah, and it is one of the finest I've heard of that over-performed tune. Here, too, Getty's orchestration is particularly varied, using light textures and a transparent sound palette. John Keats' There Was a Naughty Boy is set to rapid strophes, highly rhythmic with irregular beats and accents. The orchestration in this one is also quite original. Those Who Love the Most, based on Sara Teasdale's poem, is a broad adagio with soft horn and trombone textures sprinkled with glockenspiel and piano.

Beauty Comes Dancing, based on another original poem, is a lilting waltz featuring a solo violin (possibly played by concertmaster Joris van Rijn) and, later solo clarinet, again with irregular metric divisions of the beats and harmonic shifts that add interest. For a Dead Lady begins as a waltz, not quite as elegiac in mood as you'd expect, which morphs into 4 with continually changing accents, often pitting two different meters (chorus and orchestra) against each other.

I was particularly impressed by Getty's very dramatic setting of Lord Byron's The Destruction of Sennacherib with its powerful rhythms and aggressive brass chords—quite different from everything else that had preceded it. Musically and dramatically, this is clearly a masterpiece, and should be performed regularly by American choruses. Without going into too much detail, the music is built around similar lines as the preceding pieces but geared towards a more dynamic aesthetic. I was blown away by it!Getty's setting of Ernest Dawson's Cynara also uses a dark-sounding orchestral palette, and has an undercurrent of menace about it (mostly achieved via downward minor-key passages played by both the cellos and violins), but at a slower tempo and quieter volume. He is such a diverse composer that he knows, at this stage of his career, exactly how to gauge effects without making them sound contrived. I recommend this piece, and the preceding, to young contemporary composers as an example of how to be creative without being formulaic. This piece also includes a contrasting central section that is quieter, reflecting the words at that point, before becoming more aggressive and powerful.

The album concludes with Getty's setting of Keats' La Belle Dame sans Merci and here we encounter another, entirely different sort of setting, dramatic and strophic, with pregnant pauses in the music for emphasis. The diminuendo effect at the two-minute mark is an interesting touch, although the chorus doesn't quite bring it off as effectively as they could have. The sort of downward, minor-key passages one heard in the previous work are here assigned to the harp as well as the violas and violins, and used much more judiciously. The bitonal chord assigned to the chorus just around the six-minute mark also adds interest and makes the music highly effective.

This is clearly one of the finest collections of Getty's music extant, and I'm deeply grateful to Pentatone Classics for recording and issuing it. Even with my few caveats regarding the performance, it is a fine achievement all round.