Charles Griffes: The Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan/The White Peacock/Three Poems of Fiona McLeod

I don't have the musical expertise of the previous reviewers, whose comments are richly illuminating & much appreciated by this newcomer to classical music. But I do know that I like this music for its evocative, dreamlike quality, one that sets my soul drifting in interesting directions. It has a contemplative tone -- not of furrowed brows & brooding thoughts, but reminding me of a bird floating high above tranquil waters, with mysterious hills rising hazily in the background. If that's overly poetic, I'll confess that it was my love for Coleridge & Fiona McLeod that led me to this CD in the first place ... and it's proven to be a happy discovery. I'll be returning to this frequently in the future -- highly recommended!

Anybody who was paying attention probably sat up and took notice when Naxos released the Buffalo Philharmonic (USA, New York State) doing Copland. Not only did that disc have very full frequency, realistic sound; the band was playing as well or better than we might have credited. Music Director JoAnn Falletta is one of the more under-appreciated but keenly gifted conductors now working among us - from the sounds of the Copland disc, and now this one, she is ready for the Big Time, Big Time.

This composer is probably best known to piano students, who end up being assigned at least one or two of his solo piano works - teaching vehicles, and music, all at once. The orchestra music here is a combination of Griffes' orchestrating some of his solo piano pieces, along with other short pieces. We get three settings of poems by Fiona McLeod, sung very nicely by soprano Barbara Quintilliani, orchestrated by M. Dressler. We get a Poem, featuring solo flute, also beautifully floated by Carol Wincenc.

One nice thing about this disc is the wisely planned sequencing of its music. We start off with Griffes' orchestration of his piano piece, White Peacock. Then the three songs. Then an energetic Bacchanale, shimmering with tonal colors, and tricky-sounding cross-rhythms. Then Clouds, another work that started life as a solo piano piece. Then three tone pictures - titled, respectively, (1) The lake at evening, (2) The vale of dreams, (3) The night winds. Followed by the flute solo Poem. And an orchestral setting of The Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan wraps the disc.

On first hearing, this music may sound like ersatz Debussy with imitative touches of Ravel-ian finesse and glitter in its orchestrations. Slavic musical influences pass through, reminding us of Rimsky-Korsakov; Griffes had a way with his melodies and harmonies that may spike the punch with Scriabin, too. And others. Repeat listening will likely reveal the musical point, which is that Griffes really found his own special American voice, despite all his influences.

Griffes died young, and that doesn't necessarily help him lobby for a greater exposure in our concert halls. (I also suspect, based on this disc, that Griffes is not all that easy to play, so the big bands neglect him in favor of Debussy or Ravel or whomever is better known, and the regional bands may find him too difficult to put over in their own halls.) If composers like MacDowell helped bring German lights to the new world shores, surely Griffes helped elucidate what French discoveries might sound like in the new world. We don't fault Dvorak for writing that last, New World symphony? Nor do we fault Respighi for bringing RK to Italian shores. If we do not fault Ravel for writing at the same time as Debussy, why fault Griffes?

So thanks to all who made this disc possible. We are done a good service, and Griffes makes his long overdue marks. He's not just for piano students any more. Yes, Griffes is still offbeat. He's not as populist and big city as Gershwin, or even Charles Ives. Griffes' sound is rather like so much of USA - offbeat, conglomerate, mongrel-mix - perhaps crucially and fatally shaped, as that historian said, by always facing new frontiers. As a pioneer, then, Griffes meets the musical and cultural marks. We're not in Europe any more, Toto.

Five stars. Hope we get to hear much more of JoAnn Falletta and Buffalo. Spinning this disc, I found myself thinking we should hear them doing Sibelius, for some reason. Or let's get really gnarly, and do a complete set of the Roger Sessions symphonies?

NAXOS with artful readings by JoAnn Falletta and the Buffalo Phil., and some superb engineering, give's us an affordable value CD of Charles Griffe's limited French-Impressionist influenced orchestral output(he died at 35). All the works included on this disc with the exception of "Poem for flute and orch." are linked to some poetic or literary ideas. His masterpiece "The Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan" is his most memorable composition. About 12min. of frenzied paganistic lust featuring low bass and interjections of howling brass. With the exception of the "Bacchanale"(more tempered than Pleasure Dome)all the other works are less memorable and less colorful than their titles imply, only showing Griffes's Ravel-Debussy style. My 3 star rating does not berate the performers or production, only the minimal influence of this composer.

Charles Tomlinson Griffes (1884-1920) was the great American what-might-have-been composer. He died tragically young at 35 of pneumonia; it gives one pause to think that with a normal life-span he might have continued composing into the 1950s! Although those familiar with his best-known works, 'The White Peacock' and 'The Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan,' both presented here, might assume that he was a Debussy-and-water impressionist, this is far from the case. In fact, those two pieces are much better than this description makes them out to be, each showing clear evidence of Griffes's own personal voice and a real feel for original form. As he progressed in his too-short career, he began taking into account the kinds of things that Scriabin, Stravinsky, and even Schoenberg were doing and some of his later works show these influences.

All but one of the pieces here were originally written for piano; I recall playing 'The White Peacock' and its companion piece, 'The Fountain of the Acqua Paola' when I was a youngster, and remember the visceral thrill of all that misty and evocative impressionism. On this disc the lone exception written originally for orchestra is the lovely 'Poem for Flute and Orchestra,' played exquisitely here by Carol Wincenc, one of the most musical flutists now before the public. The piece itself has passages that sound for all the world like they come from the world of English pastoralism with modal melodies and hornpipe-y 6/8 rhythms, and of the Celtic-twilight mist-world reminiscent of Bax.

'The White Peacock,' is followed by 'Three Poems of Fiona McLeod' for soprano and orchestra, sung with real feeling here by Barbara Quintiliani whose lovely voice is a real plus; there is an incipient wobble at the highly-placed climactic moments, and unfortunately texts by Fiona McLeod (the nom de plume of poet William Sharp) are not included, but these song still manage to make an emotional impact. They are 'The Lament of Ian the Proud,' 'Thy Dark Eyes to Mine,' and 'The Rose of the Night.'

'Bacchanale' is a scherzo which could as easily have been named 'Orientale' except that there are some barbaric yawps included along the way. This is a lively, exotic-sounding piece that I'd never heard before. 'Clouds' comes from the piano suite, 'Roman Sketches,' that includes the aforementioned 'White Peacock' and 'The Fountain of Acqua Paola.' It attempts, successfully, to depict the 'golden domes and towers' of a cloud city.

'Three Tone Pictures,' each inspired by a specific poem, includes 'The Lake at Evening' inspired by Yeats's 'The Lake Isle of Innisfree'; 'The Vale of Dreams' and 'The Night Winds' were inspired by Poe's 'The Sleeper' and 'The Lake' respectively. These three tone poems all featured a prominent orchestral piano part and come close, to my mind, to the greatness of Debussy's 'Ibéria' in their sonic depiction of specific scenes.

The final piece recorded here is 'The Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan,' inspired of course by Coleridge's great poem and depicting loosely the story of Xanadu, the hidden 'pleasure dome' belonging to the Asian emperor in which a woman cries for her spectral lover. Particularly effective is the portrayal of 'a mighty fountain momently was forced; / Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst / Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail, / Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail: / And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever / It flung up momently the sacred river [Alph].'

Here is must be said that the direction by Jo Ann Falletta and the playing of her Buffalo Philharmonic are beyond praise. This orchestra has played an important part in recording much of what is good in American music, going back at least to those important recordings of Ruggles's music done when Michael Tilson Thomas was their music director, and even before that to the days of Lukas Foss's tenure. There are rare moments of uncertainty or rhythmic insecurity but the group is also clearly one of the best orchestras in America currently. I'm delighted that they have a three-record contract with Naxos to record American music. Earlier they had recorded music of Frederick Converse and it, too, was a winner. I am eager to learn what the third of their recordings will be.

Urgently recommended.

Scott Morrison