Gordon Getty is a self-confessed 19th Century romantic composer who's alive, well, and still writing music 150 years after his defining sensibilities were considered de rigueur....

In this program, the composer's anachronistic melodies and lush orchestral textures are placed at the service of Stephen Vincent Benet and Getty himself, whose words combine to form the texts for Young America, a set of six songs. They are performed by the San Francisco delegation, as is the setting of Poe's Annabel Lee. From the Swedish choir and Russian orchestra, we get the composer's settings of Tennyson and Housman in seven vivid Victorian Scenes plus three Welsh folk songs: 'Welcome Robin', 'Kind Old Man', and the beautiful 'All Through the Night'. The opera scene also comes from the Russian conductor and orchestra, with names that sound Slavic and Scandinavian singing the male roles. (In rather clenched fashion, too, I might add.)

I enjoyed the choral songs very much. Emotions rise quickly to the surface in interludes like 'Daughter of Asheville' from the Young America set--a gentle, nostalgic waltz hinting at the country's loss of innocence, then and now. There's more than a little melancholy in the Welsh group (Housman's 'With Rue My Heart is Laden' is gorgeous--the most affecting thing here, for my money). 'All Through the Night' with its sweet, arpeggiated symphonic accompaniment offers more comfort than we probably deserve in our agitated, violence-ridden world.

With such a mood established chorally, the 11-minute operatic scene seems out of place, musically and emotionally. The most evocative moments are heard immediately as the offstage choir chants 'Kyrie eleison' and other sacred texts. Frankly, I'd need to hear more to comment intelligently on Getty in opera mode. The Ericson Chamber Choir and San Francisco Chorus are first-class outfits, as are the bands and conductors backing them up. Sumptuous SACD sound flatters Getty's intentions even more. All in all, this offering is so not run-of-the-mill that I think you'd enjoy checking it out.

Composer Gordon Getty, when questioned about his style by a Terrace Theater audience member last night, confessed to being "a backward-looking guy."

That seemed a pretty fair description given the program preceding this remark, a collection of melodically rich vocal works and piano miniatures drawn from throughout his career.

Backward in Getty's case means composing tonal music with conviction, stressing clarity above all else. It's an art equivalent to writing prose simply. Conservative, yes; but very effective when communicating poetry.

Sixteen selections from his song cycle "The White Election" -- Emily Dickinson's life story told in her own words -- proved the virtue of simplicity, with soprano Martha Ellison and accompanist Wendy Glaubitz attentive to Getty's rhythmic scheme.

His ear for verse was particularly well displayed in the choral setting of Poe's "Annabel Lee," in which 20 male voices packed a subtle dramatic punch.

Getty described his pieces as showing "no evolution, just an increase in confidence." Confidence that promises there's plenty more where these came from.

The program included Rakhmaninov's "The Bells" to poems by Edgar Allan Poe, and settings by the American composer Gordon Getty of works by English Romantic poets. Commenting on the program, Pletnev said that they had wanted to draw attention to the influence of American and English poetry on 20th century culture as a whole.

Edgar Allan Poe died in the middle of the last century, but the year before the First World War his work became topical with its premonitions that ranged from the Messianic to the sepulchral.  In common with all the late Romantics, Rakhmaninov described man's progress from the cradle to the grave, embracing the joyful peal of bells at festival time, and the thunderous tocsin. The music calls us to a better world which is still our own. Everything was readying itself for portentous events and world-shattering changes.

 On the eve of the 21st century, we are once again in a period of expectation. Composers are again dusting down their copies of Edgar Allan Poe. Recently Gordon Getty has set to music the poem "Annabel Lee", a classic example of the "Poems of Youth and Death"....

On hearing Getty's music, one feels that it is not so much about eternal feelings as about what remains of them.  His melodies sigh gravely and melt, away like a consumptive maid in Pushkin's poem. Truly "she is alive today, but gone tomorrow." In the music, the sound of horn calls, rural round dances, songs of confession and songs of remembrance is only half complete, sketched-in sparingly, as if it was somehow distorted and compressed....

Composers like Gordon Getty, who have not lost natural feelings, are still writing romantic music, and conductors like Mikhail Pletnev are still performing it. It is to be hoped that they will continue their happy partnership for some time to come.

Getty's attractively orchestrated setting of [Annabel Lee], for male voices only, follows speech rhythm relentlessly. The sweet, accessible melodic line doesn't stretch single syllables over many notes, or soar with emotion or color. A whopping, self-indulgent exercise in overkill might have gotten nearer the hyper-Romantic tone of the poetry than this tepid solecism.

What a pleasure to attend a concert that includes three pieces (one a world premiere) written by contemporary composers, and come away beguiled, spirits soaring. No screeching of strings. No wailing of wind instruments. No washboard percussions. Just beautiful music that uplifts the soul.

Praise for this belongs to Gordon Getty for two of three items on the program, to William Hawley for the third, and to Robert Bass, music director of the Collegiate Chorale, for having the good taste to present them.

It all happened Sunday afternoon at St. Bartholomew's Church on Manhattan's Park Avenue. The concert was the first of five to be presented by the church, that magnificent landmark whose architectural integrity has been so much in the news lately.

Gordon Getty's contribution included "All Along the Valley," part of six a cappella choruses that had their New York premiere in April. His is a delightful, ethereal setting for Tennyson's poem of the same name, sung by sopranos and altos. It's an unpretentious piece, yet deeply felt and sung beautifully by the choir.

Who doesn't know Edgar Allan Poe's "Annabel Lee? " It was part of the curriculum in the nation's schools until the era of relevancy caused the abandonment of Poe, Hawthorne, and Emerson by so many of our high school English teachers. It was a favorite of soldiers on both sides of the Civil War, as well as a staple of parlor musicales until the advent of radio. Getty ventured his own setting last April in Carnegie Hall. In July, he expanded the instrumental interludes and divided the voices in certain spots. The revised version, given for the first time Sunday, is haunting and thoroughly modern without violating the poem's romantic integrity. I don't know of a better acoustical setting than St. Bart's for this absorbing piece. 

Gordon Getty's "Annabel Lee,'' for orchestra and low voices, set to the poem by Edgar Allen Poe, gave a nicely registered Gothic imprint to the program.

Ever since philanthropist Gordon Getty wrote "Plump Jack," his quasi-opera on Falstaff, in the 1980s, Getty-bashing has been a sport among music critics. But I see nothing remotely bashable about his new choral piece, "Annabel Lee," sung by 65 men. The work combines orchestra and choir in a skillful setting of Poe's poem on the death of a beloved. Some will gainsay Getty's tonal, retrospective harmonies, which are just a tone's throw from the more Eastern moments in Menotti and Britten. But the hand-in-glove integration of the elements was exquisite. Many of the effects were supremely sensitive, as when harp and gentle percussion lead into the chorus that voices those ear-catching intervals known as augmented seconds.

Gordon Getty's aptly gloomy choral setting of Poe's mournful poem of lost love.

The program began with two choral works by San Francisco's own Gordon Getty, both of them recorded live for release on the PentaTone Classics label. "Annabel Lee," a short, chiaroscuro-laden setting of Poe's poem of young love, has been done here before.

A newer and more ambitious offering was "Young America," a six-part song cycle written in 2001 to mostly original verse. This proved to be a sort of neo-Carl Sandburg deal, launched by exhortations to admire the breadth and scope of the nation ("Hark the Homeland") and continuing with some intimate and even sentimental offerings.

Getty's musical language is resolutely staid, which saps the score of some of the Ivesian energy it could use. But there is plenty of lovely writing, particularly in an original folk-song ("Heather Mary") whose blend of English and American melodic strains deftly straddles the Atlantic.