Customer Reviews

Gurdjieff & De Hartmann: Retour de voyage

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George Gurdjieff (1877-1949) was a Russian-born 'seer and mystic who promised that his guidance, known as "the Work," would bring his students a new enlightenment, a greater level of consciousness, a deeper sense of what it means to be in the world.' He apparently had intense personal charisma and attracted to himsself a circle of people who were deeply influenced by his cryptic teachings. He may, indeed, have be considered one of the first of the New Age teachers with which our anti-scientific age is now crowded. He also reportedly collected Middle and Far Eastern folk music and often, after a meal presiding over his disciples, he would plunk out melodies on a small harmonium and one of his disciples, a trained musician named Thomas de Hartmann (1885-1956), took down the melodies and then harmonized them so they could played at the piano. This CD represents the 11th of a 12 CD project in which all of Gurdjieff's music is being recorded by French pianist Alain Kremski, a present-day follower of Gurdjieff's teachings.

I had heard of his music years ago but had never heard any of it. When I ran across this CD I was eager to hear what it was like. On the disc are 15 pieces, totaling 62 minutes. Most are slow, most have a tame middle-eastern-sounding melisma with a few cautious melodic curlicues. De Hartmann's harmonizations are squarely diatonic and his piano arrangements feature mostly monotonous oompah left hand accompaniments. Occasionally there are martial sounding chordal rhythms in the left hand--a kind of Janissary music?--but usually the oompah returns in short order. Once in a while an odd meter will emerge, e.g. 5/8.

The melodic material is euphonious but undistinguished. The harmonies are undistinguished. The accompaniments are rudimentary. The overall effect, especially if one is listening closely, is stultifying. It is possible that the music is intended as 'trance music,' and in my case that certainly worked. I found myself falling asleep repeatedly on both occasions that I listened to it all the way through. One has the sense that simplicity is the goal here, rather like the intent of much of Satie's music; what is missing, though, is Satie's self-aware irony, not to speak of his harmonic creativity. This music is clearly intended to be serious, and thus it becomes pretentious.

In Kremski's defense, I will say that his playing is excellent and the recorded sound is rich and full.

Unless you are a follower of Gurdjieff's teachings I'd advise you to avoid this disc; I have not heard any of the others in the series and almost certainly won't be seeking them out.