It was no surprise to me that this was a delightful and exceedingly attractive collection of choral works by Gordon Getty, born in 1933, the fourth child of oil tycoon J. Paul Getty. The human voice is at the center of Getty’s love of music, and he knows how to write works that are gratifying to sing as well as to hear. He is also an accomplished poet, and some of the settings here are of his own poems. Other poets include Keats, John Masefield, Edward Arlington Robinson, Lord Byron, Sara Teasdale, and Ernest Christopher Dowson. Getty’s settings are always carefully attuned to texts; the music enhances the words and never seems in conflict with either their meaning or their rhythm. It is this specificity of word-setting that is an important component of the works on this disc.

Getty occupies a unique place in today’s world. His music can only have been composed recently, but it is not “modern music” in the traditional sense. Although his idiom is firmly tonal and fits comfortably into an earlier choral tradition, it would be unfair to call it old-fashioned. Getty is comfortable experimenting with innovative sonorities and colors, while being firmly rooted in tonality.

Read more: Henry Fogel: Review & Interview with Composer Gordon Getty

The music very much aligns with Getty’s professed self-assessment of being “two-thirds a 19th century composer.” It comfortably stays committed to the tonal language of the pre-avantgarde, though the deployment of chromaticism and an usual array of instruments make for a gently modernist touch to the score.

The piano, for instance, is something of a psychological barometer. It rises to prominence in the sombre keys played after Kathie's death. At the same time, its syncopated rhythms, together with the strings, effectively cadence the flow of the narrative which, for the frame story especially, relies on the conversational, and relatively fast-paced nature of the libretto.

Getty thus sets the tone for a chamber-like intimacy, far from the grand gestures of full-scale Romanticism or the transitional styles of the early 1900s. Accordingly, the orchestra boasts a reduced brass section but, in a modern twist, expands on the percussion. The result is a somewhat theatrical, if not cinematographic feel casting the orchestra into an subtly devised mood-painting role.

Read more: Bob Dieschburg: CD Review- Gordon Getty’s ‘Goodbye, Mr. Chips’

Getty the librettist allows ample leeway to Getty the composer, whose neo-tonal language – more respected now than 20 years ago – is readily comparable to Gian Carlo Menotti’s melodic but not necessarily tuneful idiom. Getty doesn’t aim to please; he aims to move. Talking to their deceased loved ones is a way of life for some – and in the case of Mr Chips, Kathie answers back, making her a pervasive after-death presence.

Read more: David Patrick Stearns: GETTY Goodbye, Mr Chips

Nuova e Nostra

[Translated from the Italian]

John Corigliano, perhaps the most famous of all in Europe, is responsible for Christmas at the Cloisters and, finally, Gordon Getty has also carved out a personal space for himself, with Four Christmas Carols and an arrangement of the famous Stille Nacht by Franz Grüber.

Overall, we find pieces that respond perfectly to the initial purpose, recreating the typical atmosphere of carols, also emphasized by the contribution of a group of excellent performers, formed by Lisa Delan (soprano), Lester Lynch (baritone) and the Volti Chorus for the vocal part, and by Steven Bailey (piano and Hammond organ) and members of the New Century Chamber Orchestra for the instrumental part, all under the direction of Dawn Harms.

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