Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Charles Griffes

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.

Griffes's early works are strongly influenced by German Romanticism. His songs for voice and piano, with German texts are representative of this period....

In about 1911 Griffes began to abandon the German style. The works written from then until about 1917 are highly coloured, free in form, and generally reflect many other elements of musical Impressionism. The piano pieces, for example, are pictorial and employ descriptive titles and/or poetic texts (e.g. Three Tone-Pictures and Roman Sketches). But as often as not Griffes added the texts and titles after he had completed the works. Impressionistic moods are established by gliding parallel chords, whole-tone scales, augmented triads, ostinato figures across the bar-line, and other devices. Of the songs from this period, the Tone-Images and Four Impressions most clearly reflect Griffes's brand of Impressionism. The Three Poems op.9, on the other hand, are extremely dissonant, tonally obscure, and stylistically experimental.

In November 1916 and 1917 Griffes composed settings of five oriental poems for voice and piano, based on five- and six-tone scales. Published in 1917 as Five Poems of Ancient China and Japan op.10, they were the first works in Griffes's ‘oriental’ style.... In 1917 Griffes prepared the imaginative and colourful orchestral version of his best-known oriental work, The Pleasure-Dome of Kubla Khan (originally written for piano).

The late Piano Sonata, (1917–18), is one of Griffes's most powerful and striking works. It shows him at the peak of his creative power and is a complete break from the style and approach of his earlier works: not only is it uncompromisingly dissonant, but it is absolute music with no imagery intended, no poetic programme, and no descriptive title; moreover, unlike the earlier works for piano, which were rhapsodic one-movement forms, it is cast in three movements with the two outer movements in recognizable sonata structure....

The Three Preludes for piano (1919), Griffes's last completed works, mark yet another turn in his brief career in the search for a musical language which would best express his individuality. They retain the abstract harmonic language of the sonata but represent him as a miniaturist writing within the confines of 32 bars or less....

unfortunately there's not a single youtube recording of the barcarolle, and strangely Geoffrey Tozer didn't include Op.6 in his Griffes piano works CD. maybe you want to record it yourself, argerichfan?

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.

hah, funny thing, i will actually (kind of) dedicate a performance of a special piece to a girl that is in a relationship, so maybe i'll soon share your fate and never listen to it again

if anyone finds any recordings - especially the barcarolle - let me know!

ps: i knew i recognized your avatar, the CD just arrived on my shelf, excellent recordings! the fact that argerich set a reference performance of the Liszt sonata live on her debut recital is pretty amazing..

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?

if anyone finds any recordings - especially the barcarolle - let me know!

You can see a resistance to the word - Impressionism - in that bit, but eventually it slips. While I don't think Griffes could be pigeonholed into that genre, it seems almost impossible to describe him without reference to the old impressionist school.

unfortunately there's not a single youtube recording of the barcarolle, and strangely Geoffrey Tozer didn't include Op.6 in his Griffes piano works CD. maybe you want to record it yourself, argerichfan?