Gordon Getty, by some reckonings the world's richest individual, is also a classical composer. He has generously supported opera and also composed the Falstaff-themed Plump Jack, whose overture is included here. Most of the music for which he has gained wide attention is vocal, but here is a selection of instrumental pieces, recorded in London, for a boutique Dutch audiophile label no less, with the 86-year-old Neville Marriner returning to the podium before the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields to do the honors. The ...
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Gordon Getty, by some reckonings the world's richest individual, is also a classical composer. He has generously supported opera and also composed the Falstaff-themed Plump Jack, whose overture is included here. Most of the music for which he has gained wide attention is vocal, but here is a selection of instrumental pieces, recorded in London, for a boutique Dutch audiophile label no less, with the 86-year-old Neville Marriner returning to the podium before the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields to do the honors. The London location is actually the least surprising, for Getty's style is more British than American. Getty has said that he is "two-thirds a 19th-century composer," and the Stravinsky-like dances in the Ancestor Suite, extracted from ballet music that you may not recognize as being inspired by the writings of Poe, doesn't do much to jazz up the conservative atmosphere. Yet the music doesn't exactly fit the neo-Romantic category; it's economical and brisk, for one thing, and it's full of...
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