Thomas de Hartmann (1885-1956)
Thomas Alexandrovitch de Hartmann received his musical education in the Russian school. At the age of nine he was enrolled in the academic military school of St. Petersburg. By the age of 11 his talent had been recognized and he was accepted by Arensky as a pupil in harmony and composition, and by Madame Annette Esipova-Leschetizky for the piano. He later studied with Taneiev, and received his diploma from the St. Petersburg Conservatory in 1903, which at the time was under the direction of Rimsky-Korsakov. At the age of 21 he wrote the ballet ‘The Scarlet Flower’ which was premiered to great acclaim by the Imperial Opera of St. Petersburg with Legat, Pavlova, Karsavina and Nijinsky in the cast. Tzar Nicholas II was present, and in recognition of de Hartmann’s accomplishment, authorized his release from active military service. He became reserve officer so that he could devote all his time to music.
In Munich between 1908 and 1912 de Hartmann joined the avant-garde cultural movement started by Franz Marc and Wassily Kandinsky. Their anthology ‘Der Blaue Reiter’ articulated the modernist search before World War I for a common spiritual basis of artistic expression. De Hartmann’s article “On Anarchy in Music”, proclaimed “By discovering the new laws, art should…..lead to an even greater, more conscious freedom – to different, new possibilities”.
In 1912 De Hartmann returned to St. Petersburg where his career continued to flourish. His meeting with Gurdjieff in 1916 gave a new direction to his life. De Hartmann said:
It was clear to me long before I met Gurdjieff….that to be able to develop in my creative work, something was necessary – something greater or higher that I could not name. Only if I possessed this ‘something’ would I be able to progress further and hope to have any real satisfaction from my own creation…..
For the next twelve years de Hartmann and his wife worked closely with Gurdjieff. Between 1922 and 1929 the de Hartmann’s lived at Gurdjieff’s Institute in France where most of the music now published by Schott was composed.
In 1929, de Hartmann left the Institute and resumed his career, composing sonatas, concertos, ballet music, symphonies, the opera ‘Esher’, song cycles, and a setting for voice and piano of the final pages of James Joyce’s Ulysses. During this period he earned his livelihood by writing scores for films.
In the late 40’s and early 50’s , de Hartmann was invited by Jeanne de Salzmann, Gurdjieff’s closest disciple, to give recitals of the music he had composed with Gurdjieff and to compose new pieces for Gurdjieff’s movements and sacred dances. From 1951. de Hartmann lived and worked in America until his death on March 26, 1956.
Thomas de Hartmann (1885-1956)
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