Griffes: The Songs of Charles Tomlinson Griffes

GRIFFES SONGS Liner Notes

Writing about the American composer Charles Tomlinson Griffes (1884-1920) in Music in the Modern Age, W.D. Shirley calls his songs "part of the small and select company of outstanding songs composed in English during the present century." The rediscovery of Griffes's songs is a fairly recent phenomenon: one beneficial side-effect of the increased attention to American music during the past couple of decades. Before that he was known chiefly by a few orchestral and piano compositions, like The White Peacock and The Pleasure-Dome of Kubla Khan, which have found a place in the standard repertoire. With the new revaluation of American music, however, the full scope of Griffes's artistic achievement is coming into view. Winthrop Sargeant comments that he "wrote some of the most beautiful music ever composed by an American." In America's Music Gilbert Chase tells us: "His major works are American classics; his songs are among the best we have."