As is his wont, Getty put listeners right into the action with an irresistible pulse at the outset of his cantata Joan and the Bells, written in 1997. The libretto, in English by the composer, is telegraphically compelling and poetic... In a promotional video for the concert, Getty (who co-founded SFCV and remains a major donor) had declared, not for the first time, that “I'm basically a 19th-century composer,” and indeed the influences of Wagner and Strauss were evident in the first scene (“Judgment”) and elsewhere, in chromatic movement and sweeping washes of color. The orchestra setting successfully supported soprano Lisa Delan (as Joan) and baritone Lester Lynch (as the prosecuting, British-backed bishop, Cauchon), both of whom have recorded Getty's work on the Pentatone Classics label. The chorus was effectively deployed in the roles of the townspeople of Rouen, and angelic host.

Delan's tender theatricality was particularly compelling in the “Joan in Her Chamber” scene, as was her sweet, buoyant, almost girlish soprano, as she addressed the saints she was accused of defaming. The singer's clear diction was vital here, as was Harada's and his ensemble's confident command of volume, with woodwinds and harp sounding plaintive responses. She credibly conveyed the tomboyish, forthright conviction of Joan's pride in her soldiering and her fulfillment of her divine mission.

In “The Square of Rouen,” Getty provides the chorus with a roiling commentary on Joan's dilemma, rather evocative of Benjamin Britten's deployment of a massed community of voices in Peter Grimes. In a turn of good storytelling, Cauchon, for a moment, is compelled to look back on his own youth. Lester Lynch shone as an able singing actor in the dynamic range of both his voice and his demeanor, in this dramatic scene. Getty built forcefully toward the conclusion, with ascending horns and insistent percussion culminating in the transcendent tolling of the titular bells.

Joan and the Bells offers a typically tuneful Getty creation, dramatic and picturesque in its telling of Joan of Arc's trial, her confinement and execution.

Gordon Getty is known for many different vocal, choral, and orchestral works. Of the four works on this recording, two are recording premieres. I have mixed feelings about the program. In some cases Getty chooses a subject and verses that are emphasized and enhanced by the music. Elsewhere the subject and verses seem at odds with the music. Fortunately, the program improves in the last two works. 

A Prayer for My Daughter is a choral piece based on the poem by William Butler Yeats. Getty sets the rhythm for the choral verses in one meter and the orchestra in a different meter. The music does not add to the poem's effectiveness and sometimes works against the text. Getty eliminates two of the poem's stanzas, losing the continuity of the poem which, as set by Getty, is difficult enough to follow. I found listening to the 13-minute piece a trial. This is its first recording. 

The three songs in Poor Peter have similar meter problems, but the music is better fitted to the text. The three unrelated songs are in different musical styles....

The Little Match Girl is a choral work based on the three-page short story by Hans Christian Anderson. Getty has set the entire text to music (23 minutes) and the choral writing and music are well suited. There are snow effects using harp and celeste and a short intermezzo with ascending and descending chords when the dying Little Match Girl's soul ascends to her grandmother in heaven. It is quite effective and beautifully performed. This is its premiere recording. 

Joan and the Bells is a cantata relating three scenes from the trial and execution of Joan of Arc.... Dramatically and musically the combination of soloists, chorus, and orchestra are used to great effect....

If you like Getty's music you won't have any qualms about the varying musical and rhythmic themes. The Little Match Girl and Joan and the Bells will appeal to everyone.

What is most important is that Gordon Getty has produced one of the most dramatic, exciting and tautly constructed tone poems it has been my pleasure to hear for a long time. The forces are large as befits the subject and the listener is gathered up and swept into the turmoil of Joan's final trial and execution for which retry emphasises her inner tension and the pride of her faith in her voices, his scoring for chorus particularly effective in the final pages when the Saints urge Joan's spirit to join them.

If you can forget about Getty's money for 20 minutes, just listen to his 1998 cantata Joan and the Bells and evaluate the work on its own merits. Yes, it ignores almost every musical technique developed during Getty's lifetime (he was born in 1933), and yes, it calls to mind the styles of other composers, most especially Samuel Barber, with a whiff of Vaughan Williams's Sea Symphony in the choral writing. Yet it is a highly effective work, well written for the voices, ably orchestrated, thematically coherent, dramatically persuasive.

The arresting, driving opening bars hurl us into the final moments of the trial of Joan of Arc, with her condemnation by Bishop Pierre Cauchon (a baritone) and denunciation by the chorus. Joan (a high soprano) remains quietly defiant. The town's bells have been silenced, for they represent the heavenly voices Joan claims to have heard guiding her in her military exploits against the invading English. The cantata's second movement is a long soliloquy for Joan, who recounts to the saints in heaven (or at least in her head) her call to action, and implores the saints to return to her. The final movement is mostly choral, with a few lines from Cauchon; initially, the chorus takes the part of villagers witnessing Joan's auto-da-fè, and then it gives voice to saints almost breathlessly urging Joan on to heaven. Bells sound only in the final measures, ending the work in tintinnabulation.

Unless your heart is hardened against new music that doesn't really do anything new, Joan and the Bells is a fully engaging cantata, with its shimmering orchestration and vocal lines that are actually singable. Getty is not exactly a naiäf; his bachelor's degree in English literature surely prepared him for assembling this capable, never self-consciously poetic libretto, and Getty's musical background includes lessons in piano and voice, and (after "four years in family businesses," as the bio coyly puts it) studies in music theory at the San Francisco Conservatory. Getty is trained to do what he does well.....

Joan and the Bells is a compelling cantata that gets better with each audition. Set aside your various prejudices, and buy this disc for the Getty.

[Translated from Russian] The artistic merit of the images on the screen was underwhelming in comparison to the beautiful music of Gordon Getty, Gustav Holst, and Claude Debussy, and to the excellence of the orchestra and choir.

[Translated from Russian] Gordon Getty's music is, on the one hand, very relatable to our current times and the spiritual search of people today, and on the other, is a timeless reflection on life and death, love, the world, and the fate of mankind. The composer's ability to bring out the deepest meaning behind the words and to bring this meaning into musical forms, along with his individual and expressive intonation, are distinctive features of his talent. 

When I opened this SACD I wasn't sure what to expect. The composer, Gordon Getty, was not known to me, and the works were also unfamiliar.

I'm happy to report this is a wonderful disc, with chorus and orchestra performing Getty's compositions and text from works by Hans Christian Andersen, William Butler Yeats, and a Cantata with words by Getty....

This SACD starts with “A prayer for my daughter” for chorus and orchestra, based on the poem by William Butler Yeats which is, according to Getty, “…one of the most admired works by one of the most admired poets of the age”. It is followed by “Poor Peter” for tenor, chorus and orchestra, with lyrics by Getty himself inspired by Poe and again Yeats.

Then follows “The little match girl”; the heart-breaking fairy tale by Hans Christian Andersen, put to music more or less word for word in a challenging setting for the orchestra and particularly the chorus.

The disc concludes with “Joan and the bells”, Getty's own narrative of the trial of Joan of Arc, about which he said, “It was the genius of Shaw that inverted this safe literary tradition and brought out the spunky teenager in Joan. Jean Anouilh went farther, in The Lark, and gave her the simplicity of preadolescence.

This is one of the most dramatic and involving recordings I have heard in a long time. The orchestra, chorus and soloists are precise and appropriately dramatic. The recording is amazing in it's emotional wallop and dynamic range. The soloists are placed across the front spread between the front speakers, while the surrounds get a sense of the hall. It's demonstration quality and reminds me of the old thrilling Columbia recordings with Bernstein, but here the impact is greater with a high resolution product from start to finish. If you have doubts about multichannel and the extended frequency response of SACD discs, this recording will put it all those reservations to rest.

This recording by the Münchner Rundfunkorchester and the Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks was conducted by Asher Fisch and Ulf Schirmer respectively. It features magnificent soloists such as tenor Nikolai Schukoff (“Poor Peter”), soprano Melody Moore (“Joan and the Bells”) and baritone Lester Lynch (“Joan and the Bells”).

The only drawback to this disc is the absolutely horrible cover art. Hide it away and enjoy the music. I'll search out more of Getty's music after hearing these compositions. He's an intriguing composer with a highly interesting background. Pentagon has created one of the finest recordings I've heard this year. Recommended!

In Gordon Getty's Little Match Girl, which he adapted from H. B. Paull's English translation of Hans Christian Andersen's famous tale, the composer uses a full chorus and orchestra to narrate the heartbreaking yet transcendent story, with earnest, declamatory vocal settings and striking instrumental illustrations. He seems particularly inspired by nature; one of the most arresting passages is “They had only the roof to cover them, through which the wind blew.” “Then she saw a star fall, leaving behind it a bright streak of fire” provides another scintillating musical depiction. He's also particularly inventive as the little girl strikes a succession of matches: the orchestra springs to life with each flame, as images of home, hearth and food explode into view. The girl's old grandmother, “clear and shining,” appears amid pealing brass instruments. When they fly together to a place above the Earth “where there was neither cold nor hunger nor pain,” it's soothing, then marvelously celebratory on “they were with God.” Getty's musical language is predominantly conservative, but he dramatizes all of this powerfully and directly, without cliché. The Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks isn't always intelligible, but they sing with good pitch and rhythmic precision. 

Getty also derives considerable musical inspiration from nature in A Prayer for My Daughter (one of several other works on this disc), which begins with a vigorous instrumental storm, shortly followed by the full chorus intoning the vivid opening lines of W. B. Yeats's poem of the same name. Getty's setting is full of abrupt contrasts, bright orchestral colors and a skillful sense of the visceral drama inherent in the poem's powerful, eloquently expressed parental feelings. 

Poor Peter is an appealing cycle of three songs for tenor, chorus and orchestra, set in the mythical Middle Ages. The haunting, minstrel-like “Where is My Lady?” is taken from Getty's opera Usher House, inspired by Poe. “Tune the Fiddle” is a rousing, fiery two-step, and “Ballad of Poor Peter” is melodic and melancholic, with an original text by Getty inspired by Yeats. All three are evocative of a bygone era but laced with contemporary touches. Nikolai Schukoff's earnest, opulent tenor is well-suited to these expressive, vocally sympathetic songs.

The disc concludes with Getty's engrossing, well-wrought cantata Joan and the Bells, which relates the Joan of Arc story by way of Shaw (Saint Joan) and Jean Anouilh (The Lark). (There's an earlier recording from 2003, also on the Pentatone label, with different personnel.) Melody Moore's ringing, charismatic soprano brings Joan compellingly to life, and baritone Lester Lynch's voice resonates with menace. The chorus does some particularly rousing work here, and the Münchner Rundfunkorchester blazes under Ulf Schirmer. Asher Fisch skillfully conducts the other three works.