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drplaceboIt's Forgotten Masterpiece Friday!
Two days after Independence Day, it seems only fitting to honor a neglected American composer.
Charles Tomlinson Griffes (1884-1920) was eulogized as an American Mozart or Schubert in the days and weeks after his death. After years of obscurity, he had suddenly come across sensational success in the year 1919, earning critical acclaim for one premiere after another, mostly by major orchestras, from March onward. His crowning glory came in November and December of that year: a performance of his tone poem "The Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan" by the Boston Symphony Orchestra in late November and an all-Griffes concert by the Philadelphia Orchestra in mid-December had critics proclaiming him the great American composer of his generation. But Griffes did not live to enjoy his new-found fame. Seriously ill, he was unable to attend those November and December concerts. He was hospitalized for influenza that December, and though he lived long enough to read the glowing reviews, he succumbed to secondary infections in early 1920, one of the last victims of the global flu pandemic of 1918-19.
But while Griffes's untimely death was a clear parallel to Mozart and Schubert, he was neither a child prodigy nor a prolific composer like his predecessors. He was born in a working-class family in Elmira, New York; early in his life his only musical education was sporadic piano lessons from his elder sister. It was only in his mid-teens that, having progressed beyond his sister's ability to teach him, he began to receive free piano lessons from Mary Selena Broughton, a professor at Elmira College. Eventually, with Griffes's family unable to afford to pay for advanced training, Broughton loaned him the money to travel to Berlin to continue his studies. Though he arrived in Berlin as a piano student in 1903, Griffes found himself increasingly drawn to composition, and by 1905 was exclusively studying composition under Engelbert Humperdinck. But without rich parents, a patron, or any sort of grant to support him, he was forced to cut short his stay in Europe when his money ran out in 1907. He applied for teaching jobs all over the United States, and was hired as a music teacher at the Hackley School in Tarrytown, New York, where he would work for the rest of his life. A full-time teacher who by that time was supporting his widowed mother and his unmarried younger sister, he was both chronically short of funds and chronically short of time. His overwork was made worse by his inability to hire a copyist once his orchestral music started getting performances; he would stay up late at night hand-copying parts. Under those circumstances, it is surprising that he composed as much as he did!
His fall into obscurity was rapid after his death. His younger sister Marguerite, who received all his personal papers, was largely responsible. Charles Griffes had kept meticulous diaries throughout his life, and these diaries dealt honestly with his sexual orientation, detailing his regular patronage of New York's gay bathhouses and long-term relationship with a New York policeman. His sister, fearing scandal, destroyed some of his diaries and withheld all his papers (including musical scores) from public view until 1954. With the exception of "The Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan," Griffes's orchestral works received few performances in the decades after his death. Most were unpublished and were available only in the form of handwritten copies in the libraries of individual orchestras.
Griffes's style was eclectic. He is sometimes described as an Impressionist, but he in fact studied scores from a wide range of composers throughout his life and constantly added to his musical language. His earliest compositions were conservative and owed much to Brahms, but he soon assimilated influences first from Richard Strauss, then from the French Impressionists, Russian Romantics, Asian musical traditions, and finally from modernists including Schoenberg and Prokofiev. An avid amateur painter and photographer as well as a musician, he frequently expressed a desire to evoke visual imagery with his music. His Symphonische Phantasie dates from his last months in Germany, when he was exploring the music of Debussy and Ravel while retaining a strong sense of the late Romantic idiom in which he had been steeped. During Griffes's life, it was performed only in a two-piano reduction that Griffes prepared in 1910, while the original orchestral version had to wait until the late 1960s for its premiere.
Two days after Independence Day, it seems only fitting to honor a neglected American composer.
Charles Tomlinson Griffes (1884-1920) was eulogized as an American Mozart or Schubert in the days and weeks after his death. After years of obscurity, he had suddenly come across sensational success in the year 1919, earning critical acclaim for one premiere after another, mostly by major orchestras, from March onward. His crowning glory came in November and December of that year: a performance of his tone poem "The Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan" by the Boston Symphony Orchestra in late November and an all-Griffes concert by the Philadelphia Orchestra in mid-December had critics proclaiming him the great American composer of his generation. But Griffes did not live to enjoy his new-found fame. Seriously ill, he was unable to attend those November and December concerts. He was hospitalized for influenza that December, and though he lived long enough to read the glowing reviews, he succumbed to secondary infections in early 1920, one of the last victims of the global flu pandemic of 1918-19.
But while Griffes's untimely death was a clear parallel to Mozart and Schubert, he was neither a child prodigy nor a prolific composer like his predecessors. He was born in a working-class family in Elmira, New York; early in his life his only musical education was sporadic piano lessons from his elder sister. It was only in his mid-teens that, having progressed beyond his sister's ability to teach him, he began to receive free piano lessons from Mary Selena Broughton, a professor at Elmira College. Eventually, with Griffes's family unable to afford to pay for advanced training, Broughton loaned him the money to travel to Berlin to continue his studies. Though he arrived in Berlin as a piano student in 1903, Griffes found himself increasingly drawn to composition, and by 1905 was exclusively studying composition under Engelbert Humperdinck. But without rich parents, a patron, or any sort of grant to support him, he was forced to cut short his stay in Europe when his money ran out in 1907. He applied for teaching jobs all over the United States, and was hired as a music teacher at the Hackley School in Tarrytown, New York, where he would work for the rest of his life. A full-time teacher who by that time was supporting his widowed mother and his unmarried younger sister, he was both chronically short of funds and chronically short of time. His overwork was made worse by his inability to hire a copyist once his orchestral music started getting performances; he would stay up late at night hand-copying parts. Under those circumstances, it is surprising that he composed as much as he did!
His fall into obscurity was rapid after his death. His younger sister Marguerite, who received all his personal papers, was largely responsible. Charles Griffes had kept meticulous diaries throughout his life, and these diaries dealt honestly with his sexual orientation, detailing his regular patronage of New York's gay bathhouses and long-term relationship with a New York policeman. His sister, fearing scandal, destroyed some of his diaries and withheld all his papers (including musical scores) from public view until 1954. With the exception of "The Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan," Griffes's orchestral works received few performances in the decades after his death. Most were unpublished and were available only in the form of handwritten copies in the libraries of individual orchestras.
Griffes's style was eclectic. He is sometimes described as an Impressionist, but he in fact studied scores from a wide range of composers throughout his life and constantly added to his musical language. His earliest compositions were conservative and owed much to Brahms, but he soon assimilated influences first from Richard Strauss, then from the French Impressionists, Russian Romantics, Asian musical traditions, and finally from modernists including Schoenberg and Prokofiev. An avid amateur painter and photographer as well as a musician, he frequently expressed a desire to evoke visual imagery with his music. His Symphonische Phantasie dates from his last months in Germany, when he was exploring the music of Debussy and Ravel while retaining a strong sense of the late Romantic idiom in which he had been steeped. During Griffes's life, it was performed only in a two-piano reduction that Griffes prepared in 1910, while the original orchestral version had to wait until the late 1960s for its premiere.