Robert Markow, Piano Pieces
It would be all too easy to regard what he writes as claiming attention only because of [Gordon Getty's] billionaire status, but this would be as unfair as it is unwarranted. On the basis of Conrad Tao’s program of piano music, Getty has genuine talent. He has at least a dozen recordings to his credit, and with his 80th birthday approaching next year (Dec, 20, 2014), maybe it’s time serious attention was paid to this serious composer.
The CD offers a program of miniatures composed over the span of half a century (1962 to 2012), but with no stylistic development. As the composer says in his brief program notes, they might as well have been written in reverse order. Two approach five minutes in length, but most are in the two-to-three minute range. I listened to the curiously titled Homework Suite (five pieces) and Ancestor Suite (eleven pieces), the bulk of the program, before I learned the names of the individual numbers, and couldn’t help trying to guess what each might be describing. In character, they much remind me of Schumann’s Kinderszenen and Album for the Young, each a unique gem, light in spirit but generous in content. Heard in succession, they provide enough variety to warrant continuous listening. It turns out most of them bear dance titles (waltz, polka, gavotte, etc.), but regardless of what you choose to call them, they exude charm and elegance. Getty freely admits that “my music seems to belong more in the nineteenth century, with inklings of others…” Think Schubert distilled through the alembic of Satie or Poulenc in a playful or irreverent mood.
The 19-year-old American pianist (and violinist and composer) Conrad Tao plays these pieces with obvious love, commitment and meticulous care in matters of dynamics, color, contrast and rhythmic nuance. This is no toss-off exercise. Tao tells a story, paints a picture or creates a little adventure with every piece. His playing is so imaginative and persuasive that he virtually commands your attention. The music is for the most part technically simple enough for a third- or fourth-year piano student to handle, and offers highly attractive material for recital purposes to complement well-worn repertory. The recorded sound is clear and clean, though the piano (a Steingraeger) is rather brittle and clanky in the upper register – my only complaint about an otherwise highly enjoyable release.
Jeff Dunn, Piano Pieces
Gordon Getty is a major musical philanthropist in the Bay Area, and a composer as well. His PentaTone SACD release will be of value to those who appreciate terse, melodic, and simplistic piano music that at times evinces a subtle sophistication. The 23 tracks on the CD, half of which last less than two minutes each, consist of three suites and four individual numbers.
The Ancestor Suite is the longest set on the release at 10 tracks. The program notes, even more abbreviated than the music, relate nothing about this composition or its title. However, a search on the Internet reveals that the music was composed for a ballet on Poe’s Fall of the House of Usher. Perhaps the story appealed to Getty because in it, the ancestors of Roderick Usher had been noted for “repeated deeds of munificent yet unobtrusive charity” as well as a “passionate devotion to the intricacies … of musical science.” In any case, the dances of the suite are far lighter entertainment than the tone of the Poe. Most of them are in an obvious ABA form; some are two or three ABA dances strung together. Many are given central European titles (Zwei Walzer, Schottische, Ewig Du). Chords are uncommon; linearity is emphasized in a predominate two-part harmonic texture. Some numbers display a child-like naiveté; others move briefly into more mysterious realms. My favorite of the bunch is “Waltz of the Ancestors,” which you can hear in the excerpt from the CD.
The Three Traditional Pieces are the most attractive numbers on the CD. “The Fiddler of Ballykeel” features a melody with a nice Scotch twang. While the title of “Tiefer und Tiefer” (deeper and deeper) doesn’t make sense to me, in the absence of a booklet explanation, it is a pleasant waltz. Unlike most of the other music on the CD, “Ehemals,” (German for “formerly” — why?) offers a few technical challenges for the pianist, has a more complex form, and toys with a paraphrase from the third movement of Beethoven’s “Emperor” concerto.
Two of the four individual pieces are light and brief, one referencing a phrase from the “Irish Washerwoman” jig. The last two, Andantino and Scherzo Pensieroso, are the most recently composed. Contrary to Getty’s assertion that they “might easily” have been composed in 1962, the year of the CD’s Homework Suite, a collection of pieces written when he was a San Francisco Conservatory student, they display far more melodic and harmonic variety, and a more malleable rendering of materials. Whether he admits it or not, Getty has matured over the years, and for the better.
Pianist Conrad Tao rightly takes Getty’s pieces on with a minimum of flamboyance, emphasizing clarity and linearity. A couple of the endings sound a bit too abrupt for my taste; perhaps a greater ritard may have been in order. But other than that, his work is flawless, deserving of Getty’s accolade to him: “Everything came out as I had imagined it.”
Robert Benson, Orchestral Works
Getty's attempts at composing are admirable, and he is to be commended for writing music that most listeners find very pleasant to hear, even though it is far removed from major musical statements. He knows how to orchestrate, and this new SACD shows him in a lighter mood: the overture to his opera Plump Jack, two colorful orchestral suites, and two pleasant miniatures. Distinguished conductor Sir Neville Marriner (b. 1924) leads vigorous performances of this pleasant music, and it has been very well recorded in surround sound that keeps the orchestra in front.
John Terauds, Piano Pieces
Super-talented young Illinois native Conrad Tao has made a little recorded detour through some piano works of American composer-philanthropist Gordon Getty, with wonderful results — hopefully contributing to the liberation of art music world from some enduring prejudices in the process.
First of all, let’s deal with the music itself. The Pentatone Classics album contains 23 sketches and miniatures, most of them collected into two suites: the Homework Suite of five pieces, which dates from 1962, while Getty was studying at the San Francisco Conservatory, and the later Ancestor Suite, which contains 11 pieces.
Although this isn’t complex or serious music, having a true virtuoso interpret it puts each piece into the best possible light. Tao (who turns 19 in a few weeks) brings an easy, beguiling lightness to Getty’s creations, many of which do make serious technical demands.
There are many young pianists throwing themselves into the performance of miniatures these days. They present a fine challenge in conveying mood, structure and narrative in a very short space of time.
So that’s prejudice No. 1 dispelled. There is value and enjoyment to be had from short works.
Prejudice No. 2 is also in the process of being demolished: that tonal writing has no place in the new music universe. Getty, who is in his late-70s, has spent his whole life battling an atonal aesthetic.
As he relates in the album notes: “My teacher at the Conservatory, Sol Joseph, once asked me if I expected to move on to atonalism. I told him I kind of doubted it.”
And so Getty would have been dismissed there and then.
Which brings us to Prejudice No. 3, concerning the wealthy dilettante.
Getty inherited billions in oil money, so anything he has done has been for the sheer pleasure of doing it rather than to make a living. As is the case with a 17th or 18th century prince taking an interest in music, we condescendingly smile, nod, then return our attentions to the serious composers, the ones who had to struggle for their art.
But Getty has a clear sense of what he’s trying to do. The results are not just coherent but compelling. And we should applaud that.
Aimee Tsao, Ancestor Suite
The opening Oath of the Ushers, based on Edgar Allan Poe’s "The Fall of the House of Usher", has surprises both good and bad. Under the baton of Emil de Cou, currently Music Director and principal conductor at Pacific Northwest Ballet, the orchestra brings to life the original score by San Francisco-based composer Gordon Getty from his Ancestor Suite. The combination of an experienced ballet conductor with a talented ensemble highlights the composition’s structure, shifting between neo-classical and a more contemporary feeling while still providing a clear rhythmic framework for the dancers.