Charles Griffes

Charles Tomlinson Griffes ( born September 17, 1884 in Elmira, in upstate New York, † April 8, 1920 in New York City ) was an American composer. The premature death grip is considered best-known American representative of musical Impressionism.

Life

After early piano and organ lessons in his hometown studied handle from 1903 at the Stern Conservatory in Berlin with the aim of a pianist career. However, he devoted himself increasingly to composition and took, among other things Lessons with Engelbert Humperdinck. 1907 returned to the U.S., he accepted a position as a music teacher at the Hackley School in Tarrytown, which he life - dependent on the modest salary - held. In addition, he participated in the New York music scene in part: In 1916, he played there in the American premiere of Stravinsky's Petrushka, in the version for piano with 2, 1918 concert of works organized by the handle.

Handle passed away at the age of 35 years to the late effects of influenza which he had caught the end of 1919 (possibly the Spanish flu ). His grave is located in Bloomfield Cemetery, Essex County, New Jersey. Led handle detailed diaries, which, however, were partially destroyed after his death by his sister, because she ' homosexuality caused the handle obviously.

Work

In the early works of the late German Romanticism obliged to handle became the most famous American representative of musical Impressionism, whose characteristics appear in his music starting around 1911. He studied alongside the music of the French Impressionists and the works of contemporary Russian composers, for example, by Alexander Scriabin, whose influence in his work can also be seen for example in the use of synthetic scales and whole-tone scales. Handle also experimented with East Asian economies of scale.

His best known works include White Peacock for Piano (1917 ), the Piano Sonata in F ( 1918), the tone poem The Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan by a fragment of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1919) and written for Georges Barrere Poem for Flute and Orchestra ( 1919). He also wrote numerous programmatic pieces for piano, chamber ensembles and songs. Given his short life and the simultaneous teaching commitments his catalog is relatively extensive; some of his compositions are still performed today and are available on recordings.