Synopses & Reviews
These impressionistic, difficult-to-find creations from an important American composer of the early 20th century include Three Tone-Pictures, Op. 5 ("The Lake at Evening," "The Vale of Dreams," and "The Night Winds"); Fantasy Pieces, Op. 6 ("Barcarolle," "Notturno," and "Scherzo"); Roman Sketches, Op. 7 ("The White Peacock," "Nightfall," "The Fountains of the Acqua Paolo," and "Clouds"); and Sonata. Reproduced from authoritative scores.
Synopsis
The central piano works of Charles Tomlinson Griffes (1884-1920) share with Claude Debussy's music those distinctive harmonies and rhythms that typify impressionism in the early twentieth century. In that period of 1910 to about 1916 -- the year of Debussy's Sunken Cathedral and Ondine -- Griffes composed his evocative The Lake at Evening, The White Peacock, and The Fountain of the Acqua Paola. This highly colored music, free in form and strongly pictorial, signaled Griffes's creative break from his student work in Berlin, infusing his music with the experimental parallel harmonies, whole-note scales, fluid rhythms, poetic references, and tinges of orientalism typical of the style and its time.
This fine collection contains all of the essential works of Griffes's central period: Three Tone-Pictures, Op. 5 (The Lake at Evening, The Vale of Dreams, and The Night Winds); Fantasy Pieces, Op. 6 (Barcarolle, Notturno, and Scherzo); Roman Sketches, Op. 7 (The White Peacock, Nightfall, The Fountain of the Acqua Paolo, and Clouds). This volume concludes with Griffes's Sonata, completed in early 1918, just two years before his premature death. Written at the peak of Griffes's creative power, it is one of the composer's most striking works and a complete break from his earlier style -- classically structured and uncompromisingly dissonant.
Table of Contents
"Three Tone-Pictures, Op. 5"
Epigraphs
The Lake at Evening
The Vale of Dreams
The Night Winds
"Fantasy Pieces, Op. 6"
Epigraphs
Barcarolle
Notturno
Scherzo
"Roman Sketches, Op. 7"
Epigraphs
The White Peacock
Nightfall (al far della notte)
The Fountain of the Acqua Paola
Clouds
Sonata
Feroce - Allegretto con moto - Tranquillamente - Molto tranquillo - Allegro vivace - Appassionato - Lento - poco a poco molto vivace - Presto