As a composer, Gordon Getty is in the unusual and awkward position of having too much money; an heir to the Getty fortune, he has had a difficult time being taken seriously as a composer because of an assumption that he can pay the best performers to take on his music, so did not have to work his way up through the ranks based on the merits of his work. The assumption about his ability to pay for the best may in fact be true, based on the quality of the acclaimed performers on this album, including Ulf Schirmer leading M ...
Read More
As a composer, Gordon Getty is in the unusual and awkward position of having too much money; an heir to the Getty fortune, he has had a difficult time being taken seriously as a composer because of an assumption that he can pay the best performers to take on his music, so did not have to work his way up through the ranks based on the merits of his work. The assumption about his ability to pay for the best may in fact be true, based on the quality of the acclaimed performers on this album, including Ulf Schirmer leading Münchner Rundfunkorchester and Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks, and mezzo-soprano Suzanne Mentzer. That doesn't disallow the possibility that his music may stand on its own, though. This recording of Plump Jack, his opera based on the character of Falstaff, uses the concert version of the piece rather than the full opera. Several scenes are omitted and several others are presented only in excerpts, so it's difficult to assess what the overall impact of the opera would be. Getty writes...
Read Less
