Three Poems of Fiona McLeod

Editorial Reviews
10/10 Classics Today
"JoAnn Falletta leads a clearly energized Buffalo Philharmonic in a knockout performance"

Album Description
During his brief life (cut short by pneumonia when he was just 35), Charles Griffes was able to compose music of distinctive beauty. He was fascinated by the music of the French-Impressionist composers Debussy and Ravel but was also influenced by the Russian sounds of Scriabin and Mussorgsky and a German post-romantic idiom. Ultimately, Griffes found his own unique voice that blended all of these characteristics. Griffes had a passion for verse and almost all of his orchestral scores are linked in some way to poetic or literary ideas. The works on this disc are notable examples of Griffes’ "tone pictures" with the exception of the Poem for Flute and Orchestra, a miniature tone poem without associated text or images.

Tracks:

The White Peacock
The Lament Of Ian The Proud
Thy Dark Eyes To Mine
The Rose Of The Night
Bacchanale
Clouds
The Lake At Evening
The Vale Of Dreams
The Night Winds
Poem For Flute And Orchestra
The Pleasure Dome Of Kubla Khan

Album Description

During his brief life (cut short by pneumonia when he was just 35), Charles Griffes was able to compose music of distinctive beauty. He was fascinated by the music of the French-Impressionist composers Debussy and Ravel but was also influenced by the Russian sounds of Scriabin and Mussorgsky and a German post-romantic idiom. Ultimately, Griffes found his own unique voice that blended all of these characteristics. Griffes had a passion for verse and almost all of his orchestral scores are linked in some way to poetic or literary ideas. The works on this disc are notable examples of Griffes' "tone pictures" with the exception of the Poem for Flute and Orchestra, a miniature tone poem without associated text or images.

Customer Reviews:

This covers him..........2006-06-20

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.

A Must-Have Recording.......2004-04-27

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

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