The attraction of the Orient pervades Western culture
deeply and has lent it renewing genetic material. Sometimes the efforts
now seem insincere and manipulative as in the case of Ketèlbey
and a host of opportunistic purveyors. We wince at such music now though
at the time it was perhaps viewed as more authentic. This music is now
better thought of in the 'Nigger Minstrel' category.
At the other extremes we have people such as Roussel
with his opera Padmavati, Koechlin with his Heures Persanes,
Schmitt with The Tragedy of Salome. In these cases the exotic
side merges and melts into impressionism and modernism. The work of
Gurdjieff and Hartmann falls into the category of unassuming atmosphere
with Hartmann seemingly transcribing the oriental melodies recalled
by Gurdjieff from his wanderings through Asia. Alain Kremski has devoted
himself to recording the complete works and the discs under review are
but two instalments of the ten disc series. Paul Serotsky has reviewed
two of the others.
The microphones have been placed in warm intimate proximity
to the piano. Kremski and Auvidis avoid any antiseptic effect. This
is simple music rendered without artifice. It is as if we are examining
the raw material from which the Slav and Asiatic voices of classical
music (eg Rimsky's Russian Easter Festival Overture) are
formed), Kremski invests these pieces with great sentiment sometimes
as if at prayer (Mouvement 11) at others with classical - almost
Mozartian - limpid poise as in Exercice No. 4. Exercice 15
is closer to Prokofiev in quick pace. Musiques pour les mouvements
No 13 and No 19 sound like an early sketch for Alan Hovhaness's
courtly devotional dances.
In Vol 10 there is a Rachmaninovian catch in the rhythm
of No 40 of the Asian songs and even more so in Asian songs
and rhythms no 11. Tibetan Melody is an approach to a sweet
gavotte - simplicity in celebration. Greek Round is a little
like the solo piano music of Holst with a touch of Petrushka about
it. The halting little Greek Song sounds a little like Grainger's
Gumsuckers' March. There is a little catch in the throat in the
Armenian Song. Tunes can be neatly pecked out as in Kurdish
Greek Melody. There is nothing here that is grand or over-inflated
- nothing to cause you to wince.
Kremski has recorded across these ten volumes 200 of
the Hartmann/Gurdjieff works. This does not represent the complete works
but Kremski assures us that in these ten discs we have the quintessential
Gurdjieff/Hartmann.
The music will be a draw to listeners who have discovered
the music of Alan Hovhaness but who hanker after a still greater and
graver simplicity. None of these pieces slide into the sort of dissonant
forests and mists represented by Hovhaness's Vishnu Symphony.
If you were dismayed by that experience then any or all of these CDs
will please you. Others may wonder if the music itself is rather thin
fare for concert performance or sustained listening.
Alain Kremski has made the collaborative music of Gurdjieff
and de Hartmann his own in a way similar to the grip Eric Parkin has
on the piano output Ireland and Bax. In Kremski's case the ownership
is even more complete.
Rob Barnett
Gurdjieff/de Hartmann - Piano Works in ten volumes by Alain Kremski
(piano)
The complete series on Auvidis Naive
1. Voyage vers des lieux inaccessibles - V 4884
2. Chercheurs de vérité - V 4885
3. Récits de la resurrection du Christ - V 4886
4. Méditation - V 4887
5. Musiques des Sayyids et des derviches - V 4888
6. Rituel d'un ordre soufi - V 4889
7. Derviches trembleur - V 4890
8. La premiere prière du derviche - V 4880
9. Les cercles - V 4881
10. Hymne pour le Jour de Noël - V 4882
Alain Kremski (piano)