Griffes, Charles Tomlinson

Griffes, Charles Tomlinson

(1884–1920) composer; born in Elmira, N.Y. After beginning his music studies in the U.S.A., he studied piano and composition in Berlin, returning to the U.S.A. in 1907 to teach in a boys' school in Tarrytown, N.Y., where he remained until his untimely death. Developing slowly and composing painstakingly, he had begun to achieve a highly colorful and personal style in works such as the Pleasure Dome of Kubla Khan (1920). He is remembered as the great might-have-been of American music.

The Cambridge Dictionary of American Biography, by John S. Bowman. Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1995. Reproduced with permission.