Edison Award-Winning Album
ECM has had a long involvement with internationally renowned Armenian philosopher and composer Gurdjieff’s music, starting with Keith Jarrett’s recording of the “Sacred Hymns”, which brought about an international revival of interest in the music. Gurdjieff, who is considered to be one of the most influential spiritual leaders of the 20th century, created the approach of the Harmonious Development of Man in the course of his journeys throughout the world. The rearrangements of Gurdjieff’s music by Levon Eskenian have their roots in Armenian, Greek, Arabic, Assyrian, Kurdish, Persian and Caucasian folk and spiritual music that preserve their authenticity. With this project and internationally acclaimed album Music of Georges I. Gurdjieff, the ensemble returns the music of Gurdjieff to its inspirational sources.
About Georges Ivanovitch Gurdjieff
Gurdjieff, born in Armenia in the late 19th century, created the approach of the Harmonious Development of Man in the course of his journeys throughout the world in search of the truth. His extraordinary musical repertoire was based on the music he heard while traveling in Armenia, the Caucasus, the Middle East, Central Asia, India, and North Africa, where he witnessed a myriad of folk and spiritual music, rituals, and dance traditions. Gurdjieff’s music consists of 300 pieces and fragments for the piano he composed in the 1920s by dictating them orally to his student, the Russian composer, and pianist Thomas de Hartmann. Till now, Gurdjieff’s compositions have been studied in the West, largely via the piano transcriptions of Thomas de Hartmann.
Along with The Gurdjieff Ensemble, Levon Eskenian goes beyond the printed notes to look at the musical traditions that Gurdjieff encountered during his travels. The pieces that Eskenian has collected have their roots in Armenian, Arabic, Greek, Assyrian, Kurdish and Caucasian folk and spiritual music, and the rearrangements were created to preserve their authenticity. This revelatory interpretation allows the listeners to experience where Gurdjieff emerges close-up and in full colors with the instruments of the East.
Testimonial
“When Gurdjieff’s music sounds -with this formation of folk instruments and instrumentation – I feel that I have witnessed an unprecedented event. What appeals most to me in Levon Eskenian’s instrumentation is the extremely meticulous, clear-cut work approach – without unnecessary ‘composing’ and ‘cleverness’- when in the wilderness of silence the tiniest intervention is done with sound, which is very characteristic of Gurdjieff’s works. There is deep silence at the core of Gurdjieff’s music that relates us to the Ecclesiastes chapter of the Bible, or to the truth told of deep silences from faraway lands, a stillness that has not been darkened at all, and has the degree of density that leaves the Gurdjieffian silence immaculate.” – Tigran Mansurian, Composer