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.

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. 

Brooding, febrile atmosphere hits you like a sledgehammer in The Little Match Girl by billionaire composer/philanthropist Gordon Getty. The libretto sets Hans Christian Andersen's text near word-for-word, which makes for a lot of words. It's another collective effort in which the story is told by the chorus; whether strictly opera or not, the music is awfully grandiose for a tale of such devastating loneliness. Asher Fisch conducts the Bavarian Radio Symphony Choir and the Munich Radio Orchestra in a performance that accordingly doesn't hold back.