Full orchestra and chorus are summoned to “The Destruction of Sennacherib”, for this setting of the epic by George Gordon (Lord) Byron (1788-1824). It “begins with the Assyrian army stomping through you,” in the words of the composer. Getty marshals his trademark mastery of the individual instruments and sections of the orchestra, including harp and chimes, making advances on 20th-century chromatic modulations and anguished voicings. “But it’s an extremely beautiful poem,” he insists, “and the ending is reflective.”
COMPOSER'S NOTES
E.A. Robinson, like Masefield, paid no court to modernism. “For a Dead Lady” and “Eros Turannos” build like Bach fugues. Few can match him for cadence and the longer breath. The fateful anapests of “The Destruction of Sennacherib”put Byron among those few. Sara Teasdales’s “Those Who Love the Most” shows the equal power of a lighter touch.