George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff (?-1949) is one of the most glittering and enigmatic personalities in the spiritual scene of the early 20th century.

He was probably born between 1866 and 1877 in the then border area of Turkey and Russia. His origin and many years of his life have remained undocumented. Gurdjieff used to make up stories and people. Nevertheless, he might actually have undertaken several of his journeys through Asia and Northern Africa, during which he came in contact with many different esoteric schools, mainly Sufi orders. It is certain that he returned to Europe at the very beginning of the 20th century, bringing with him knowledge that had been widely unknown there before as well as teachings based upon the experiences and cognitions gained during his travels. He started teaching in Moscow and St. Petersburg, but in 1918 he had to flee due to the Revolution and reached France after an adventurous odyssey together with a group of his students. Near Fontainebleau in the surroundings of Paris he founded his "Institute for the Harmonious Development of Mankind". In 1933, Gurdjieff moved to Paris, where he continued teaching until his death in 1949 and composed extensive writings. Between 1924 and 1927, Gurdjieff created many works for piano - together with the composer and pianist Thomas de Hartmann -, for the most part based upon his spiritual and musical impressions brought back from his journeys.

„ I had a very difficult and trying time with this music. Mr Gurdjieff sometimes whistled or played on the piano with one finger a very complicated sort of melody—as are all Eastern melodies, although they seem at first to be monotonous. To grasp this melody, to transcribe it in European notation, required a tour de force.“ (Thomas de Hartmann).

Thomas Alexandrovitch de Hartmann (1885-1956) was born near Kiev, graduated from the conservatory of St. Petersburg in 1908, studied with Felix Mottl, then musical director of the Munich Opera House, until 1912 and was a member of the artist community "Blauer Reiter" together with his friend Kandinsky. In 1916, he accompanied Gurdjieff on an adventurous journey that finally led them to France. There he worked as a composer and became a close friend of Pablo Casals. After Gurdjieff's death he promoted his teachings in the USA.

Gurdjieff's teachings contain mystical elements of Sufism, Buddhism, Christianity, Gnosis, Zoroastrism and the Cabbala. His summons was radical: "Awake! Awake from your unexpected hypnotic sleep, rise to awareness and conscience!" Exactly this call is one of the most important foundations of Sufism. In 1920, Gurdjieff moved into an Istanbul apartment together with his pupil and musical partner, Thomas de Hartmann, which lay in direct neighbourhood to the Mevlevi Dervishes' meeting hall in the quarter of Galata. Almost every day they witnessed this Sufi order's ritual of music and dance, and thus absorbed decisive spiritual and musical impressions that later became part of their ritual choreographies and piano compositions.

Even though some of them are even composed for piano and obligato frame drum, the „Danses Derviche“, „Chants et Danses Sayyid“ and „Mélodies Orientales“ are no slavish imitations of traditional ethnic music. Gurdjieff and de Hartmann transformed the archetypes of ancient Eastern spiritual and musical traditions for the West's archetypical instrument, the piano, in order to answer questions that can only be faced by East and West jointly. Our „Retour de Voyage“ unites piano, traditional music from the Mevlevi Sema and the whirling of the Dervishes from the Golden Horn, that had inspired Gurdjieff and de Hartmann already a century ago, in an East-Western ritual for the cathedral of post-modern faith: the concert hall.

Dogan Dikmen: Voice / Celaleddin Biçer: Ney (Reed flute) & Kanun (Trapezoid cither) / Christopher Miltenberger: Piano /
Ahmet Kadri Rizeli: Kemençe (Fiddle) / Ugur Isik: Cello / Vladimir Ivanoff: Percussion, Arrangements, Musical director /
Judith Haug: Projections / Ibrahim Birlikay, Metin Erkus: Mevlevi Dervishes