1. Chant from a holy book (3 duduk,oud)
  2. Kurd shepherd melody(blul, saz)
  3. Prayer(kanon)
  4. Sayyid Chant and dance No. 10 (2oud, kanon, blul, dap)
  5. Sayyid chant and dance No. 29(oud, kanon, blul, dap)
  6. Armenian song (duduk, santur, tar, kamancha, kanon, oud, dap)
  7. Bayaty(oud, kanon, kamancha, blul, dap)
  8. Sayyid chant and dance No. 9 (oud, kanon, blul, dap)
  9. No. 11 from "Asian songs and rhythms" (tar, santur, oud, dap, zarb)
  10. Caucasian dance (duduk, kamancha, tar, santur, kanon, oud, dhol)
  11. No. 40 from "Asian songs and rhythms" (duduk, kamancha, tar, santur, kanon, oud, dap)
  12. Trinity (tar, santur, dap)
  13. Assyrian women mourners (4 duduk, dap)
  14. Atarnakh, kurd song (blul, kamancha, tar, santur, kanon, saz, oud, dap)
  15. Arabian dance (2 oud, kanon, dap)
  16. Ancient Greek dance (santur, kanon, oud, dap)
  17. Duduki (3 duduk, oud, dap)

Gurdjieff Folk Instrument Ensemble
Levon Eskenian – conductor

"What appeals most to me in Levon Eskenian's instrumentation is the extremely meticulous, clear cut work approach without unnecessary `composing' and `cleverness' - when in the wilderness of silence the tiniest intervention is done with sound, which is very characteristic of Gurdjieff's works. There is deep silence at the core of Gurdjieff's music that relates us to the Ecclesiastes chapter of the Bible, or to the truth told of deep silences from faraway lands, a stillness that has not been darkened at all, and has the degree of density that leaves the Gurdjieffian silence immaculate." -- -Tigran Mansurian, amazon.com

Armenian writer and philosopher Georges I. Gurdjieff was not trained as a composer, but he had a wealth of musical ideas based on folk traditions of Armenia and other Near and Middle Eastern cultures. His disciple Thomas de Hartmann was a pianist and composer, and Gurdjieff dictated over 300 melodies to him, which he arranged for piano, and which have become relatively widely known thanks to the advocacy of pianists like Keith Jarrett, Cecil Lytle, and Alain Kremski. On this ECM album, Levon Eskenian takes Gurdjieff's music a step closer to its roots by arranging the piano pieces for the kinds of instruments and folk ensembles the composer would have been most familiar with. The results sound remarkably like folk music of the regions in which Gurdjieff lived and traveled. Some of the instruments Eskenian uses in the Gurdjieff Folk Instruments Ensemble may be familiar to Western listeners with an interest in Eastern music, but some are likely to be exotic to all but specialists and committed fans. The string, wind, and percussion instruments produce a rich variety of timbres and Eskenian combines them with insight and ingenuity to produce a broad spectrum of moods. The modal pieces, many of which have a gently elegiac or meditative quality, are related to a number folk traditions, and in his helpful program notes, Eskenian describes the cultural influences behind each piece. ECM's sound is immaculate, warmly atmospheric, and immediate. --- Stephen Eddins, Rovi

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01 	Sayyid Chant and Dance (30.III.1926) 	4'22
02 	As if the Stormy Years had Passed 	4'03
03 	The Bokharian Dervish, Hadji-Asvatz-Troov 	4'45
04 	Prayer 	2'43
05 	Sayyid Chant and Dance (22.V.1926) 	6'48
06 	When Gafar and Zeinab walk in a somnambulistic state 	4'34
07 	Sayyid Chant and Dance (undated) 	5'10
08 	Tibetan Dance, Fragment No.6 from ‘The Struggle of the Magicians’ 	2'10
09 	Molto lento e liberamente 	2'42
10 	Fragment No.4, from ‘The Struggle of the Magicians’ 	4'52
11 	The Resurrection of Christ 	3'16
12 	Méditation  	2'21
13 	Reading from a Sacred Book 	8'11

Electric guitar	- Gunter Herbig
Arranger - Thomas de Hartmann, Gunter Herbig

One of the great mystics of the early 20th century, George lvanovich Gurdjieff was born in Alexandropol on the border of Russian Armenia and Turkey. As a young man, he began to travel east as far as Tibet, Afghanistan and Central Asia, in search of spiritual enlightenment. Visiting ancient temples, Gurdjieff learned from spiritual teachers and absorbed music from all the places he visited. On his return to the West, he gathered a group of followers who were drawn to his charismatic personality.

One of these was the pianist and composer Thomas de Hartmann, and a unique collaboration between de Hartmann and Gurdjieff ensued which would produce well over 300 piano pieces. Gurdjieff would play his melodies on the guitar or the piano and de Hartmann would write them down, harmonize and provide them with minimalistic accompaniments. The guitarist Gunter Herbig came across Gurdjieff’s writings and music in his youth. For decades he cherished the idea of transcribing these pieces for his own instrument, but it wasn’t until he began to experiment with an electric guitar that he found a way of doing so. ---bis.se

The idea of playing the music of the mystic G.I. Gurdjieff on an electric guitar might seem to be out in left field, but it works quite well in the hands of guitarist Gunther Herbig. This is partly because some of the music, played by Gurdjieff as part of mystical discussions or rituals, originated with ideas on an acoustic guitar; the music was filled out for piano ("transcribed" is not a sufficient word) by composer Thomas de Hartmann. More than that, though, the electric guitar properly conveys the interior, meditative quality of the music. It needs somehow to live in the present rather than having any antique connotations. The representational matter of Gurdjieff's pieces ranges from Sayyid chant to a Tibetan Dance to The Resurrection of Christ (sample this) to a piece called When Gafar and Zeinab Walk in a Somnambulistic State. Everything is minimalistic in texture and suitably quiet (the guitar is at the bottom of its dynamic range), but evocative in its way. BIS captures Herbig clearly in a New Zealand studio. Certainly what one thinks of Gurdjieff depends on what one thinks of musical mysticism more generally, but this recording is not the pure curiosity it seems to be; it does justice to its material. ---James Manheim, AllMusic Review

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