Charles Griffes - Biographical Sketch

Griffes, Charles Tomlinson (1884-1920): Charles Tomlinson Griffes was born 
on September 17, 1884 in Elmira, New York, a growing urban city, to Wilbur 
and Clara Griffes.  
For the last few months of his life Griffes lived in the Loomis Sanitorium, 
where he died on April 8, 1920, after an unsuccessful rib surgery to remove 
fluid, of empyema or abscesses of the lungs resulting from influenza.

Teachers:
Mary Selena Broughton (1899-1903): Professor of Piano at Elmira College; 
Miss Broughton was Griffes' first piano teacher, and she also financed the 
first three of Griffes' four years of study in Germany
Stern Conservatory in Berlin, Germany (1903-1905): Studied piano with Dr. 
Ernst Jedliczka and Gottfried Galston, composition with Philippe BartholomÈ 
R¸fer, and theory with Max Julius Loewengard and Wilhelm Klatte
Englebert Humperdinck (1905-1906): Gave Griffes about a dozen composition 
lessons

Employment:
Breslauer Conservatory of Music in Berlin, Germany (1906-1907): Professor 
in advanced piano playing
Hackley School in Tarrytown, New York (1907-1920): Musical Instructor

After Griffes' Death:
December 1920: Mezzo-soprano Edna Thomas, violinist Sascha Jacobinoff, and 
pianist Olga Steeb formed an ensemble called the Griffes Group.  The group 
toured the United States extensively and was important in performing 
Griffes' works.

1967: Although G. Schirmer was Griffes' sole publisher while he was alive, 
C. F. Peters Corporation began publishing several of Griffes' songs and 
piano compositions beginning in 1967.  Several of Griffes' works are also 
now available by rental from G. Schirmer, Inc. and the Fleisher Collection 
of the Free Library of Philadelphia 

1976: The bicentennial of the United States in 1976 inspired a flood of 
musical activities of American works, and Griffes received his share of 
recognition during these events.  Perhaps the most important of the 
recording projects of this time was that of the Recorded Anthology of 
American Music by New World Records.  Among their first ten releases 
was a retrospective of Griffes' music.

1999: Fourteen individuals and one institution were inducted into the 
Classical Music Hall of Fame.  The names were announced during the 
evening concert of the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and included Milton 
Babbitt, Amy Marcy Beach, William Schuman, William Grant Still, and 
Charles Tomlinson Griffes among others.

Location of Works Now:
New York Public Library: several autograph manuscripts, sketches, and 

sketchbooks, about 400 letters and postcards, original drawings and 
watercolors, albums of photographs taken by Griffes, and the published 
scores that Griffes owned by other composers

Music Division of the Library of Congress: several autograph manuscripts, 
letters, and photographs

Gannett-Tripp Library at Elmira College: a few autograph manuscripts, 
a sketchbook, several dozen Berlin letters, and more than fifty books 
Griffes once owned.  

Donna Anderson: rights to Griffes' unpublished manuscripts, letters, 
and photographs; also all of the composer's former possessions, including 
his five diaries, several autograph manuscripts, family photograph albums, 
original programs, publishing contracts, royalty records, books, and a 
scrapbook; Anderson will eventually place these items in the New York Public 
Library and the Library of Congress.
	
Griffes Scholars:
Donna K. Anderson: a biography, a descriptive catalog of his works, an 
annotated bibliography-discography, and editions and translations of some of 
Griffes' works; has also written program notes, articles, and jacket notes on 
Griffes and performed the premieres of several of his unpublished works

Edward Maisel: biography on the composer was first published in 1943; Maisel 
made a revision to the book in 1984, adding source notes, a new introduction, 
and a works list

Although considered by many to be an American Impressionist composer, Charles 
Tomlinson Griffes was a composer whose works stretched far beyond this general 
classification.  To label him as such is to disregard the majority of his 
compositions, compositions that range from works in a German Romantic style to 
pieces composed in an experimental way.  Charles Griffes was aware of what was 
happening musically in the United States and around the world, and he used 
these elements, along with his own individual style, in his compositions.
Although his works do not fit exactly into three style periods, his 
compositions seem to evolve in three stages.  The first period of his 
composition followed the tradition of many of his American predecessors and 
contemporaries in the German Romantic style and was also naturally highly 
influenced by his studies in Germany.  Around 1912 Griffes seemed to turn 
from this style to a more nontraditional style using many of the elements 
that Claude Debussy used in his Impressionist compositions.  The works in 
this period are some of his more well-known, perhaps explaining why many 
critics and authors classify him as an Impressionist composer.  Several of 
Griffes' compositions from the end of this period reflect his interest in 
other cultures of the world, particularly of the Orient.  Griffes' final 
style was a departure from his earlier works and incorporated some more 
experimental elements, and he was really setting himself apart from other 
composers at the time of his death in 1920.

MRP 4/03