Many years ago I purchased
on impulse an RCA album of music conducted
by Charles Gerhardt – mainly because
I had been extremely impressed with
Gerhardt’s Classic film Score Series
that RCA released through the 1970s.
That album included the best performance
to date of Howard Hanson’s Romantic
Symphony and Griffes The Pleasure
Dome of Kubla Khan. Why do I
mention this? Because of Gerhardt’s
taste for the exotic and ‘cinematic’
in music; and this Griffes piece is
just that - a sensual and exciting trip
to Arabia (one senses retribution for
a violated harem at its climax) One
might expect to hear such luscious music
underpinning any Arabian Nights film
romance starring Sabu and Jon Hall from
the 1940s. JoAnn Falletta brings out
all its voluptuous languor and perfumed
atmosphere.
Born in New York City,
Charles Griffes studied in Berlin and
France before teaching at a boys’ school
in Tarrytown, NY until his early death
in 1920. He was fascinated and much
influenced by the music of Debussy and
Ravel – and by Japanese and American-
Indian themes and oriental scales. In
his later works polymetric and polytonal
features are apparent.
The White Peacock
(1915) was inspired by a poem by the
English late-Romantic novelist William
Sharp (1855-1905) writing under the
pseudonym Fiona McLeod. Griffes’ colours
and slow, dreamy approach is very reminiscent
of the French Impressionists with a
subtle far eastern overlay. The Three
Poems of Fiona McLeod are beautifully
evocative of the gray misty Hebrides,
the mysterious light, the breezes and
slow swell of the seas. Barbara Quintiliani,
despite a tendency to vibrato, is dramatic
and nicely expressive; her voice, in
its controlled dynamics, used by Griffes
as almost an extension of the orchestra.
Bacchanale,
at a more pressing tempo, is as
might be expected, something of a hedonistic
celebration with some imaginative writing
for brass. The whole is densely, richly
scored and lusciously orchestrated with
a contrastingly quieter and more reflective
section. There is much depth and variety
in this miniature four-minute tone poem.
Clouds, the
fourth and last piece in Griffes’ Roman
Sketches is another little gem,
full of atmosphere: similar but quite
different to Debussy’s Nocturnes.
Here Griffes’ exotic, wispy harmonies
and oriental colours graphically suggest
"…golden domes and towers of a
city with streets of amethyst and turquoise."
The Three Tone Poems
inspired by poems by W.B Yeats and Edgar
Allan Poe are equally exotic and dream-like;
even, as far as the second and third
pieces are concerned, subtly nightmarish.
There is often an unnerving voluptuousness
about this music. Griffes adds a solo
piano to good romantic effect in The
Vale of Dreams (Listeners might
find in this piece an uncanny resemblance
to Jerry Goldsmith’s music for that
notorious film Basic Instinct.)
Griffes’ Poem for
Flute and Orchestra coolly shimmers
and cavorts in sunlit meadows but also
squeezes through troubled menacing thickets.
Again, good atmospheric writing particularly
for a sombre threatening horn. Carol
Wincenc grasps every virtuoso and expressionist
opportunity.
A delightful, exotic,
musical picture, story book.
Ian Lace
see also
review by Rob Barnett
Barbara Quintiliani (sop) *