Nobody likes to be patronizing, especially not to the richest man in the known universe or whatever Mr. Getty is. But the only response I can muster to this sweetly wrong-headed song cycle is to mentally pat the composer on the head and say, "Yes, yes, very nice." The texts are by Emily Dickinson, and the songs are arranged in four matching groups of eight that trace a roughly chronological and biographical course through "Emily's" life. Erickson sings bravely, with a lovely tone and firm technical control.

Getty's aesthetic principle in this cycle is to close his eyes very tight , and pretend very very hard that it's 1870 again. Melodically, the writing is often quite imaginative; Getty provides a number of pretty tunes in which to dress up Dickinson's poetry. But there's no rhythmic or harmonic life to the music at all, and the whole cycle is so proudly, determinedly anachronistic that it's hard to take seriously. Some of the songs would merit an A in a model-composition class, some a C; none of them have much business out in the real world.