Charles Griffes - The Lake at Evening (practice run)
1,690 views · Published 27 July 2009 · 5:19 · Indexed 20 September 2026
Charles Griffes, an early 20th-century American composer whose works are laden with Impressionism, has always been one of my favorite composers. I've played "The Night Winds" and I've listened to "The White Peacock" and "The Fountain of the Acqua Paola" countless times by now; while his pieces show clear deference to Debussy, I feel they are his own intimate creations, not depicting mere scenes and paintings but actually depicting people and relationships amidst the scenes as well. Each one of his pieces has an excerpt of a poem with it, by such people as Edgar Allen Poe and William Sharp, that enhances the scene beautifully. This piece, "The Lake at Evening", is probably one of his easier pieces, but it is still beautiful...each time I play it I imagine a couple riding in a small boat on a tranquil lake. It's not difficult to play the notes, but it is quite difficult to play them *well*; those octaves in the left hand should actually be much softer and more muffled than how I'm playing them here. This really is one of a few pieces I play that makes me wish I didn't have a spinet at home.
