Gurdjieff & de Hartmann :: The Collaboration

A word about the collaboration between Gurdjieff and Thomas de Hartmann…Historically there have been a number of notable collaborations between composers, from Mozart and da Ponte to Gilbert and Sullivan to the Beatles. Gurdjieff remembered tunes and rhythms from his travels, and Thomas de Hartmann was able to harmonize and put them into Western notation. What is unusual and remarkable about their work however, is that they used the energy of a group to help fuel the process. Gurdjieff would start to play, an audience of the residents of the Prieure would appear, de Hartmann would come downstairs, and the process would take place. It was often agonizing, de Hartmann having to come to a tour de force in order to translate the Eastern melody into the Western notation, but amazingly there are almost no erasures or corrections on the original manuscripts. It is as if the two collaborators were able to channel the energy of the Group to assist their work.