Gurdjieff - De Hartmann

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When he was at the Prieuré, Mr Gurdjieff worked with me a great deal on music, but not for Movements. The exercises he showed in August 1924 were the last new Movements he ever gave at the Prieuré. Beginning in July 1925 he began to create another kind of music, which flowed richly from him during the next two years. I had a very difficult and trying time with this music. Mr Gurdjieff sometimes whistled or played on the piano with one finger a very complicated sort of melody—as are all Eastern melodies, although they seem at first to be monotonous. To grasp this melody, to transcribe it in European notation, required a tour de force. How it was written down is very interesting in itself. It usually happened in the evening, either in the big salon of the château or in the Study House. From my room I usually heard when Mr Gurdjieff began to play and, taking my music paper, I had to rush downstairs. All the people came soon and the music dictation was always in front of everybody. It was not easy to notate. While listening to him play, I had to scribble down at feverish speed the tortuous shifts and turns of the melody, sometimes a repetition of just two notes. But in what rhythm? How to mark the accentuation? There was no hint of conventional Western metres and tuning. Here was some sort of rhythm of a different nature, other divisions of the flow of melody, which could not be interrupted or divided by bar-lines. And the harmony—the Eastern tonality on which the melody was c

top songs

albums

Music for The Movements

Hidden Sources

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Music of Gurdjieff-de Hartmann CD1. Thomas de Hartmann (piano)

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Music of Gurdjieff-de Hartmann CD3. Thomas de Hartmann (piano)

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Cantos E Ritmos Do Oriente

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Music of Gurdjieff-De Hartmann CD2. Thomas de Hartmann (piano)

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Music for the Piano v.1 Asian Songs and Rhythms d.1

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Voyage Vers Des Lieux Inaccessibles

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Music for the Piano v.1: Asian Songs and Rhythms d.2

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Music for The Movements CD 1

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Prière pour la miséricorde

The Music of Gurdjieff / De Hartmann

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