|
An early
GHS music project was to assist Gert-Jan Blom in the
preservation of Gurdjieff's unique harmonium recordings
(most of them recorded in 1949 in Paris by Dushka
Howarth.)
Though literally melting away with age, the original tapes
were coaxed back from the Gurdjieff heirs. These together with
wire recordings made in New York, copies of missing tapes
unearthed amongst effects of the late Tom Forman, and from the
NY Foundation's (mildewed) closets, from private collections,
etc. all were salvaged, meticulously cleaned up and data-based
by Gert-Jan Blom.
This urgent first step was accomplished only just in time to
save everything that Gurdjieff himself ever recorded from
complete deterioration.
A boxed set containing Blom's informative and
well-illustrated book with 136 reconstituted recordings on two
CD discs, and one MP3 (with motion picture footage from 1949)
was released in November, 2004, under the title "Harmonic
Development." See ("HARMONIC DEVELOPMENT" at right).
Gert-Jan's next Gurdjieff music project was full orchestra
recordings of
Gurdjieff's music.
The Gurdjieff/de Hartmann piano pieces "Seid Dance," "Song of
the Aisors," "Song of the Fisherwomen," "Duduki," and "Tibetan
Masked Dance," scored into an "Oriental Suite" by Thomas de
Hartmann, were beautifully recorded by the "Metropole Orkest"
(Holland's public broadcasting orchestra) which also performed
them live (with Gurdjieff's "Great Prayer") in Amsterdam in
June, 2002, before an enthusiastic audience of 1500.
With the cooperation of the Gurdjieff Heritage Society these
"forgotten scores" had been located and conserved, the proper
permissions acquired, tempos meticulously confirmed from
Thomas de Hartmann's own piano recordings, etc. (all this with
the active aid of de Hartmann's heirs, Tom Daly Sr. and his
son, Tom Daly, Jr.)
Gert-Jan Blom, subsequently appointed Artistic Producer of
the Metropole Orchestra and Musical Advisor of the Holland
Festival, initiated and produced the entire project even
recruiting outside financial support.
The enthusiastic reception of this first work led to the even
more important recording by the Metropole Orchestra of all the
extraordinary orchestrations Gurdjieff himself wrote out or
dictated in 1923 to be used in his first Movements
Demonstrations in Paris, and the reduced versions for a small
orchestra that were required for the 1924 Demonstrations in
America.
See: "Oriental Suite -Complete Orchestrations
1923-1924"link at right) |
