TUE., NOVEMBER 27, 2007
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The Keys To Enlightenment: The Piano Music of Gurdjieff/De Hartmann
by Robert Phoenix
G.I. Gurdjieff was one of the most important spiritual figures of the 20th century. Controversial and cloaked in mystery, his mythology is as rich as it is questionable. He claimed to have traveled from his native Armenia to the Far East, where he studied with a series of spiritual masters, all of which was recounted in his biography, Meetings With Remarkable Men. Gurdjieff seemed to have appeared out of thin air, materializing in the western world with a deep knowledge of esoteric wisdom, armed with techniques and exercises for attaining spiritual states. His contention is that humanity is in a trance, a spiritual slumber that could be awakened through rigorous self-examination and certain techniques. He called this “The Work” or “The Fourth Way.”
One of Gurdjieff’s great questions was: "How many people are there in the world?" Most, when asked did their best to approximate the number of living beings during their particular era. No matter how close the number was, it was inevitably wrong. Gurdjieff’s answer was: “nine, all the rest are merely reflections.” What he was referring to was the nine basic personality types that he delineated in perhaps his most important gift to the world of psycho-spirituality, the Enneagram, an essential component of “The Work.”
The Enneagram is a complex system that assigns basic values to a particular personality. Type One is the reformer; Two, the helper; Three, the motivator; Four, the romantic; Five, the thinker; Six, the skeptic; Seven, the sensationalist; Eight, the authority; and Nine, the peacemaker. Once a person's type has been determined, they're assigned "wings" (sub-numbers), which allow them to see other parts of their personality in respect to other aspects of the Enneagram. The Enneagram Institute has a brief test that can quickly give a baseline assessment of one's Enneagram number.
Gurdjieff began his studies by throwing lavish dinners with his new charges. He would stock the table with copious amounts of alcohol, generally vodka and wine. Gurdjieff would then initiate a drinking game called, “the toast of the fools,” wherein each person at the table would have a turn and toast to some foolish person in the world, either in their own immediate life or the world at large. One person would lead the toast and everyone would take part by drinking a shot of vodka, followed by a drink of wine. This went on through the night, as Gurdjieff would witness his newest batch of initiates get hammered. As they did, they would show themselves in very revealing ways. Gurdjieff took mental notes on each person and could quickly begin to see their type, along with their weaknesses, manifesting in all kinds of unpleasant ways. By the end of the night, an utterly sober Gurdjieff would have a dossier stashed away in the recesses of his mind and knew exactly where to probe, push, cajole, frighten, sooth and sway each person.
For Gurdjieff, music was a direct and immediate expression of the divine.
Artists throughout the years have been attracted to Gurdjieff. The writer P.D. Ouspensky was a devout follower who later broke with Gurdjieff's teachings. Another artist of note who found great interest not in just Gurdjieff's teachings but his original musical compositions was the great jazz pianist, Keith Jarrett. Jarrett’s love of impressionistic études falls nicely in line with Gurdjieff’s own keyboard compositions, which he claimed were direct transcriptions of pieces from the spiritual masters that he had studied with. For Gurdjieff, music was a direct and immediate expression of the divine, assisting in focusing one’s inner sight to the subtle plains of vast spiritual dimensions. As another great mystic of the 20th century, the Sufi master Hazrat Inayat Khan once so eloquently penned in his landmark work, The Mysticism of Sound and Music (Shambala Press), “Music, the word we use in everyday language is nothing less than the picture of the Beloved.” This was Gudjieff’s intent — to recreate tone poems of exquisite beauty and thus evoke the composite inner state of each listener.
Gurdjieff had help in translating his over 200 pieces of “sacred music.” Thomas De Hartmann, a Russian composer and musician who became a lifelong student of Gurdjieff’s, helped score the music of his teacher’s middle period. (Gurdjieff himself wrote early compositions such as the ballet "The Struggle of the Magicians.") On The Music Of Gurdjieff/De Hartmann De Hartmann evokes the somber beauty and plaintive melodies of the compositions, illuminated by occasional notes of brightness, hope, longing, yearning and, in some moments, a triumphal statement arises, just like the occasional breakthrough achieved via "The Work." The pieces hover above the causality of the physical plane. In the classical frame of reference, the music sounds like a darker version of Chopin, colored by minor chords, giving it a gravitas not found in the airy meditations of Satie, an impressionistic soulmate of Gurdjieff and De Hartmann. In more contemporary comparisons, composers and players such as George Winston, Liz Story and the aforementioned Keith Jarrett owe a great deal to Gurdjieff’s groundbreaking use of the piano as a tool for cultivating inner states, even as they employ a modern sense of technique.
While it might not be considered new age by today’s definitions and standards, or classical in the classical sense of the term, these compositions were ahead of their time and, along with the Enneagram, might be the most resilient component of Gurdjieff’s lifelong quest to break through the veil of the senses and become one with the cosmic force of creation and the divine love of its creator.
One of Gurdjieff’s great questions was: "How many people are there in the world?" Most, when asked did their best to approximate the number of living beings during their particular era. No matter how close the number was, it was inevitably wrong. Gurdjieff’s answer was: “nine, all the rest are merely reflections.” What he was referring to was the nine basic personality types that he delineated in perhaps his most important gift to the world of psycho-spirituality, the Enneagram, an essential component of “The Work.”
The Enneagram is a complex system that assigns basic values to a particular personality. Type One is the reformer; Two, the helper; Three, the motivator; Four, the romantic; Five, the thinker; Six, the skeptic; Seven, the sensationalist; Eight, the authority; and Nine, the peacemaker. Once a person's type has been determined, they're assigned "wings" (sub-numbers), which allow them to see other parts of their personality in respect to other aspects of the Enneagram. The Enneagram Institute has a brief test that can quickly give a baseline assessment of one's Enneagram number.
Gurdjieff began his studies by throwing lavish dinners with his new charges. He would stock the table with copious amounts of alcohol, generally vodka and wine. Gurdjieff would then initiate a drinking game called, “the toast of the fools,” wherein each person at the table would have a turn and toast to some foolish person in the world, either in their own immediate life or the world at large. One person would lead the toast and everyone would take part by drinking a shot of vodka, followed by a drink of wine. This went on through the night, as Gurdjieff would witness his newest batch of initiates get hammered. As they did, they would show themselves in very revealing ways. Gurdjieff took mental notes on each person and could quickly begin to see their type, along with their weaknesses, manifesting in all kinds of unpleasant ways. By the end of the night, an utterly sober Gurdjieff would have a dossier stashed away in the recesses of his mind and knew exactly where to probe, push, cajole, frighten, sooth and sway each person.
Artists throughout the years have been attracted to Gurdjieff. The writer P.D. Ouspensky was a devout follower who later broke with Gurdjieff's teachings. Another artist of note who found great interest not in just Gurdjieff's teachings but his original musical compositions was the great jazz pianist, Keith Jarrett. Jarrett’s love of impressionistic études falls nicely in line with Gurdjieff’s own keyboard compositions, which he claimed were direct transcriptions of pieces from the spiritual masters that he had studied with. For Gurdjieff, music was a direct and immediate expression of the divine, assisting in focusing one’s inner sight to the subtle plains of vast spiritual dimensions. As another great mystic of the 20th century, the Sufi master Hazrat Inayat Khan once so eloquently penned in his landmark work, The Mysticism of Sound and Music (Shambala Press), “Music, the word we use in everyday language is nothing less than the picture of the Beloved.” This was Gudjieff’s intent — to recreate tone poems of exquisite beauty and thus evoke the composite inner state of each listener.
Gurdjieff had help in translating his over 200 pieces of “sacred music.” Thomas De Hartmann, a Russian composer and musician who became a lifelong student of Gurdjieff’s, helped score the music of his teacher’s middle period. (Gurdjieff himself wrote early compositions such as the ballet "The Struggle of the Magicians.") On The Music Of Gurdjieff/De Hartmann De Hartmann evokes the somber beauty and plaintive melodies of the compositions, illuminated by occasional notes of brightness, hope, longing, yearning and, in some moments, a triumphal statement arises, just like the occasional breakthrough achieved via "The Work." The pieces hover above the causality of the physical plane. In the classical frame of reference, the music sounds like a darker version of Chopin, colored by minor chords, giving it a gravitas not found in the airy meditations of Satie, an impressionistic soulmate of Gurdjieff and De Hartmann. In more contemporary comparisons, composers and players such as George Winston, Liz Story and the aforementioned Keith Jarrett owe a great deal to Gurdjieff’s groundbreaking use of the piano as a tool for cultivating inner states, even as they employ a modern sense of technique.
While it might not be considered new age by today’s definitions and standards, or classical in the classical sense of the term, these compositions were ahead of their time and, along with the Enneagram, might be the most resilient component of Gurdjieff’s lifelong quest to break through the veil of the senses and become one with the cosmic force of creation and the divine love of its creator.
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