Charles Tomlinson Griffes was an American composer whose life forms one of the better What ifs of music history. He was one of those composers who, being born in the late 19th century (1884, to be specific), learned and came of age while American music was still struggling to move beyond its European influences. American classical music would not really start to come into its own until European Romanticism was firmly on the wane, and American factors like jazz would arise. Griffes was enormously talented and his own influences seem to have been the kind of mystical impressionism found in the work of composers like Scriabin, as well as the sound world of the French impressionists like Debussy and Ravel. Sadly, Griffes was struck down at the young age of 35 when the Spanish flu pandemic swept the world. The music of his that survives is often fascinating and suggestive of what might have come to be had he lived to the fullness of his gifts.
The current work, The Kairn of Koridwen, is a chamber work intended for an unusual ensemble: one flute, two clarinets, two horns, piano, harp, and celeste. Since Kairn was composed as a “dance-drama”–I assume that means a ballet–it’s surprising how long the work is, but listening to it, it never feels overlong. Griffes gets a lot of color and almost mysticism out of his material and his scoring for that small ensemble. The work is downright dramatic at times, and never less than fascinating. Here is The Kairn of Koridwen by Charles Tomlinson Griffes.
