Charles Tomlinson Griffes
Charles Tomlinson Griffes wrote piano, chamber and vocal music that moved from German Romanticism toward a distinctive American Impressionism, rich in colour, exotic atmosphere and synthetic scales.
His Roman Sketches (1915–16) are Debussian tone pictures: The White Peacock wanders through a garden of lyrical figuration; Nightfall opens in low, ponderous chords before darkness settles; The Fountain of the Acqua Paola carries the water-music line with mutating metres and uneven key signatures. The Notturno for piano belongs to the same poetic night strain. Larger scores include the tone poem The Pleasure-Dome of Kubla Khan, after Coleridge, and the Poem for Flute and Orchestra, beside a late Piano Sonata that tightens the harmonic language. Much of the writing is programmatic, drawn to mystery, gardens, fountains and the exotic, including early American responses to Japanese theatrical colour.
Compositions by Charles Tomlinson Griffes appear on
Carpe Diem: Piano Music from Italy
This recording celebrates Italy, and Rome above all, as a lasting place of artistic pilgrimage and inspiration. Italian-themed solo piano works frame the premiere of Michael Kieran Harvey’s Carpe Diem (2015).
Night Thoughts
During the long still nights of Melbourne’s Covid lockdowns, pianist Len Vorster listened widely and thought hard about what he heard. Those evening ruminations became this programme of fifteen nocturnes and night pieces, from Schumann’s circle to Copland.