Essentuki
By Gurdjieff Oriental Quartet

​ Georges Ivanovitch Gurdjieff, born in 1866, was a russian philosopher and composer of Armenian and Greek descent. He collected sacred musical pieces from many
monasteries of different religions all over Asia (India, Tibet, Turkey…).
Many years later, he played these tunes on the Indian harmonium to one of his disciples, Nicolas de Hartmann, who composed a piano accompaniment based on the traditional rhythms beaten out by Gurdjieff.
The result was a grandiose classical repertoire for piano solo composed in the early twenties.
The aim of the Gurdjieff Oriental Quartet is to interpret this repertoire as Gurdjieff could have heard it in the Eastern monasteries (modal music, themes interspersed with solos and preludes in the corresponding ragas) while exploiting de Hartmann’s harmonization.