Resonance CD

Resonance (The music of Gurdjieff/de Hartmann arranged for instruments) is the first CD from the Ensemble Resonance. This CD is no longer available.

From the CD liner notes:

“Until recently, the music of Mr. Gurdjieff has been heard mostly on the piano, and under certain definite conditions we have sensed its power of transformation.

Today in Gurdjieff groups around the world, we see more and more the value and the need of working together. The question then arises: can working on and listening to this music in various instrumental settings help us open to another influence?

The music offered here is a collaboration of six musicians from two long established Gurdjieff groups: the Rochester Folk Art Guild of Middlesex, NY, and the Gurdjieff Foundation of Paris, France. Having independently explored the same repertoire for many years, they met at the International Music Conference in San Francisco during the summer of 2000. From this exchange the project of making a recording emerged, with preparation in both Paris and Middlesex.

Since it was felt that the living atmosphere of a concert (including improvisations by birds!) would encourage a deeper listening, these pieces are drawn from two concerts given at the Rochester Folk Art Guild in July 2001. Their selection emphasizes a search for quality of attention rather than technical perfection. Many different instrumental combinations, balances, and tempos await exploration.

This recording is dedicated to Mrs. Louise March (1900 – 1987), inspired listener, guide, and teacher, and to the members of the Rochester Folk Art Guild and the Gurdjieff Foundation of Paris, who gave their support in so many ways.”

Jenny Koralek of Parabola reviews Resonance:

THE MUSIC ON THIS CD is a combination of two concerts given in 2001 at the Rochester Folk Art Guild of Middlesex, New York by six professional musicians from two long-established Gurdjieff groups. Their purpose was to perform G. I. Gurdjieff and Thomas de Hartmann’s music on a variety of instruments, in this case a challenging and attractive mix of two guitars, flute, oboe, bassoon, and piano in varying permutations and combinations. Their search was for a fine quality of attention rather than technical perfection, and the listener is made aware of a deep, shared attentiveness between audience and performers. Resonance is the first of their efforts; a second CD, representing a progression of their work, is expected in the summer of 2004.

It is indeed interesting and refreshing to hear this music played on a medley of instruments; rarely is the bassoon’s earthly warmth put to such good use. The mellow oboe and the divine flute add their own beauties to a sensitive and at times subtle use of the two guitars and piano.

This is not the first time that these folk tunes have been played on instruments other than the piano and, as usual, they respond comfortably; from time to time they attain a special kind of charm. But there are other pieces which move the listener in a particular and profound way, an unaccountable way, especially in the untitled piece, “Andante con moto,” the “Sayyid Chants and Dances,” “For Professor Skridlov,” and the “Caucasian Dance.”

“Long Ago in Mikhailov” falls into a completely different category. Written in the style of a nineteenth-century popular ballad, and treading skillfully that razor’s edge between true feeling and schmaltz, it is lifted here into something sweet, tender, and true, due to the very high and particular standard demanded of themselves by these musicians as they listen so very attentively to one another.

Interestingly, for only the two most sacred pieces – “Bokharian Dervish Hadji Asvatz Troov” and “Hymn To Our Endless Creator” – is the piano used exclusively. It is hard to believe that this was not intentional because it sounds so right, but why was such a decision made? All in all, one is left feeling that folk music responds well to other instrumentalizations, but that the piano, with its weightier “underpinning,” still has its very necessary place for more sacred music.

The final piece, “Meditation,” is played exceedingly well on a single guitar, but sounds slightly more sentimental than it would have on the piano, which seems to have the possibility of producing a more rigorous sound. But it would need an expert to explain the reasons for these different resonances.

These lovely, haunting sounds – from where have they come? – From without? Or from within? – as Shams of Tabriz asked. Do they reach us, thanks to Gurdjieff and de Hartmann, and through the fingers and ears and rhythmic bodies of these fine players, from a more real world? Do they evoke, awaken in the listener maybe for the first time a yearning for worlds as yet only “half realized?” Or at that moment of hearing them once again, are they believed in and longed for once again?

Jenny Koralek is an English author of numerous children’s books and co-editor with Ellen Dooling Draper of A Lively Oracle: A Centennial Celebration of P.L. Travers, Creator of Mary Poppins (Larson).

Copyright 2004 Jenny Koralek

Reprinted from Parabola, Spring 2004 (www.parabola.org), with permission of the author

— Jenny Koralek, Parabola (Spring 2004)

Track Listing:

1. Vol I no 17: Kurd Shepherd Melody
2. Vol II no 36: Dervish Dance
3. Vol III no 24: 22.III.1926 (Untitled)
4. Vol I no 11: (Untitled)
5. Vol II no 19: Sayyid Chant and Dance
6. Vol I no 44: Greek Song
7. Vol I no 41: Kurd Melody
8. Vol I no 38: Afghan Melody
9. Vol IV: Bokharian Dervish, Hadji Asvatz Troov
10. Vol II no 2: For Professor Skridlov
11. Vol II no 41: Sayyid Chant and Dance
12. Vol III no 36: Hymn to Our Endless Creator
13. Vol I no 12: (Untitled)
14. Vol II no 38: Caucasian Dance
15. Vol I no 30: Long Ago in Mikhailov
16. Vol II no 15: Sayyid Chant
17. Vol III no 37: Meditation

Resonance credits:

Produced by Glenn Huels for Schadowrider Ltd.
Recorded, engineered & mastered by John Truebger
All selections written by G. I. Gurdjieff and T. de Hartmann and published by Schott Music International
Arrangments by the musicians
Design by Windsor Street Design Associates, www.wsda.com
Cover photo by Ben Bennett
Manufactured in the United States by shadowrider records (a trademark and division of Schadowrider Ltd).