| Charles Tomlinson Griffes (1884-1920) was one of the foremost American composers of his day. In the year before his death, his works were performed by the top American orchestras: the Boston Symphony, the Cleveland Orchestra, the Philadelphia Orchestra, and the New York Symphonic Society. Most musicians are familiar with only three of the 138 works he completed in his short lifetime: the Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan, the White Peacock, and the Poem for Flute and Orchestra. The present study is concerned with the five movements for string quartet composed by Griffes, of which one is an early student composition from his German late-romantic period (1903-1910) and four are late works from his neoclassic period (1916-1920), two of which were published posthumously by G. Schirmer as Two Sketches for String Quartet based on Indian Themes. Griffes's works for string quartet are a small but important part of his compositional output. Various factors such as the chronological ordering and groupings of his four late quartet movements, Adolfo Betti's suggested revisions and rewriting of the two published Indian Sketches, and Oscar G. Sonneck's editorial decision to withhold the third Indian Sketches from publication as well as Griffes's own decision to discard the Scherzo have left a missing link for string players interested in the American quartet literature of the early twentieth century. The Two Sketches for String Quartet based on Indian Themes is currently out of print. The other two movements--the Allegro energico (the first of the "Indian Sketches" by Griffes's design) and the Scherzo--are unknown and unavailable except to the most diligent of performer-scholars. It is hoped that the present study of the unpublished quartet movements and the inclusion of Griffes's original writing as an alternative to the revisions made by Betti to the published Lento e mesto and Allegro giocoso will give contemporary string quartets access to a valuable addition to the repertoire. |
