Griffes, Charles Tomlinson
Griffes, Charles Tomlinson
(grĭf`ĭs), 1884–1920, American composer, b. Elmira, N.Y. A pupil of HumperdinckHumperdinck, Engelbert, 1854–1921, German composer and teacher. He is known chiefly for his first opera, Hänsel und Gretel (1893), successful because of its fairy-tale subject and its folk-inspired music.
..... Click the link for more information. in Germany, he returned to the United States in 1907. Among his outstanding larger compositions are The Pleasure-Dome of Kubla Khan (Boston, 1920), for orchestra; his Poem, for flute and orchestra (1918); and Roman Sketches (1915–16), for piano, which includes The White Peacock. His tautly intense piano sonata (1918, pub. 1921) represents his mature style, in which he was free from earlier influences of German romanticism and impressionism and created a uniquely American idiom.
Bibliography
See biography by E. M. Maisel (1943, repr. 1984).