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So, I was at my first lesson with my new teacher, a concert pianist, and he told me to listen to possible pieces he would give me by a composer named Charles Griffes, this was one of them:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CD0-bCXZVj0&feature=related

Just trying to open discussion of lesser-known composers

I played his "White Peacock", also from the Op. 7 Roman Sketches.

What in incredible set. He has a very delicate and interesting language. Not that it matters much, but he was gay, and frequented the bath-houses of the early 20th centuries.

In a weird way, and in a good way, I can hear it in his music.

A very understated composer, with a very refined way of writing.

Check out the Barcarolle from his Fantasy Pieces, Op. 6. It's rather erotic, and that Venetian gondolier must have thoroughly enjoyed watching his passengers!

My son also played the Peacock. It's still in his repertoire two years later.

Your terms -- understated, refined -- are well chosen.

Griffes' work often appears on Federation lists because the required piece must be American. Their definition of American is a bit stretched. Rachmaninoff and Tcherepnin are on the list. But what the heck. That helps broaden the choice a bit.

Griffes is one of the 3 composers that my music history professor named as "Impressionist." Haha, just throwing that out there. I like his music. It does sound a bit like Debussy. Sometimes. Sometimes it's weirder.

Well, Griffes was indeed an American Impressionist. He studied in Berlin and returned to the US in 1907. While in Europe he was deeply immersed in impressionistic piano works.

At a recent concert, P*S used the Peacock as a sort of 'slow movement' between the first and third movements of Debussy's Suite Pour le Piano. That worked really well. The Fountains that Skorpius posted would also go well if paired with a French work. I imagine it would link up nicely with a Debussy prelude like the Cathedrale Engloutie that he is starting.

Griffes is great. But about that program... doesn't the second movement of the Debussy also work as a slow movement between the first and third movements? (And it's not like it's not a masterpiece....)


-Jason

Yes, but you have to know the second movement.

He's still polishing the Sarabande, which is indeed a masterpiece. In it's absence, the Griffes offered a nice storyline about transatlantic musical connections.

I LOVE Griffes!!! I have a video of me playing his Scherzo on YouTube!

I highly recommend learning the Fountains piece. The Roman Sketches are all great pieces, and so are the Fantasy pieces (and the sonata).

I hear reflections - as it were - of Debussy's "Reflets dans l'eau" in the linked piece.

Regards,

Oooo! I was unaware of the sonata. I'll have to check it out. (I think I may have a fetish with sonata form... or maybe it's because so many great composers wrote so many great sonatas )

I played The Fountains of the Acqua Paola earlier this year for my church, they were dazzled by it. His harmonic language can seem indecipherable on the page at first, but it sounds very clean and intelligible to the listener.. kind of like Chopin.

By all means. If I am not mistaken, the Griffes sonata had a certain vogue for a while, but then the academics had their way with it, not to their taste. I never notice it programmed these days, and I wonder how much honestly written music (though not 'forward looking' enough) has been suppressed.

I would check out the Barcarolle. No one except me has mentioned it in this thread, but it really is an aural feast.

I suspect that academic taste as it evolved in mid-century has left a hole on our musical memory for a lot of good work from the prior half century. That just means there is a lot of good stuff ripe for revisionism and rediscovery.

I think the Griffes works that remain at least partially alive for students are the Roman Sketches and Poem for flute/piano.

Impressionistic? Not quite what I remember from singing his songs. I'm not very familiar with his piano works though, so maybe I'm off.

Anyway, I thought he was thought of as "Expressionistic," very similar to impressionism in some ways and very opposite in others. For example, his songs would typically have a number of measures of the ethereal, disembodied and magical sensibility we call impressionism, and this would be suddenly contrasted with something quite violent. I thought this contrast was pretty much what defined expressionism. Happy to be corrected if I'm wrong, or if this isn't typical of Griffes' piano works.

Tomasino

I think you do have a point, tomasino. The Sonata is certainly not what I would call "Impressionistic." It looks forward to Copland and Barber more than it apes Debussy or Ravel.

I agree not all of Griffes's work sounds impressionistic. That's why I'm confused why my professor named him among the 3 impressionist composers when he left out Ravel.

So do I -- with hints of Debussy's Pagodes (from Estampes) too, especially at 1:01, and also Scriabin at 1:53 (very similar to the central part of Poème tragique Op.34).

I agree with the posters who say the Griffes Sonata doesn't sound impressionistic, but it was his last work and very different in style from his previous compositions. The harsh 8-tone scale he uses in much of the sonata definitely doesn't sound impressionistic!

P.S. It surprised me very much to hear his surname pronounced as two syllables in a music shop some years ago. British readers like me might expect "Griffs", and French or Canadian readers might expect "Greef", but his name is apparently correctly pronounced "Griff-iss".

The academia seems to have it's nasty way with everything modern, especially in the last few decades. Our music has lived through various instituions and educational structures. I feel the modern academic model is quite destructive, or at the least creating an anachronism. I quite prefered the 'apprentice model' of the 17th century, when composers would study intensely with an elder, and be commisioned by royalty (though that was in no way perfect). ... better than sustaining yourself in the university or the conservatory anyway. Or how about the parlor world of the 19th?

I will absolutely check out Op. 6! I'm unfamiliar with the set, and quite excited .

Sometimes I wonder how much works which are built with a priority of 'forwardness' - often originating in dishonesty, and often too foward thinking its own sake - end up encouraged by the collegiate model.

I have never heard his name pronounced other than the two-syllable Griff'-iss. But then, how often have I heard his name pronounced at all?

Regards,