I just stumbled onto these by accident. I had never heard of the composer(Russian, 1885-1956)or any of these pieces but I find them very beautiful. I'm not sure what a dervish is exactly(middle Eastern dance?) despite reading a little on the internet, so if anyone can explain this I'd appreciate it. The videos show Chiu during recording sessions. I cannot understand much of what their talking about but others may find their discussion of recording technique interesting.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zql2hHPr_IMhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eu3468d8sOwhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gu8cXemjJWk
Don't know these particular pieces, but Thomas de Hartmann came to my attention long long time ago, as he was the guy who "transcribed" (or shall we say worked out) music by the philosopher Gurdjieff, a man with very little formal musical training but who traveled far and wide and remembered much of the music he heard during his travels. Keith Jarrett recorded a Gurjieff CD, there are some other recordings out there - interesting stuff.
Just for fun I'll ad my two cents?pence? worth and watch to see if any of the "big guns" reply!
I would say the notes are all in a minor key,I tried on my 'ole johanna and it seems to be Amin. Also a lot of the tones from the base are sevenths.
I suppose the "Arab/Eastern" instruments would have been string or wind so that many microtones would have been available in original rendidtions.
Rimsky-korsakov I seem to remember used quite a bit of "Eastern" paterns.
I can not for the life of me work out a meter for the music.
I'm sure you can find Dervish in "wiki" but are they not the religious sect that do a great deal of whirling round and round whilst praying.
Glad to stumble upon this thread! Hymns and Dervishes is working title and the CD is working it's way through the system, hopefully out by end of the year.
The term "dervish" in my understanding is a devout muslim of the Sufi tradition. There are whirling dervishes and there are dervishes - the whirlers are a subset of the more general Dervishes.
I use the term generically to describe Gurdjieff/De Hartmann's pieces that are either titled Sayyid or Bayaty or other. In contrast to the pieces from Hymns of a Great Temple, which seem more Western-based.
The unusual element of the program is that the Dervishes are played on a specially tuned piano. In fact, each piece (and even sections of pieces) is tuned to a different scale, based on ancient scales of the Middle Eastern traditions. The effect is not noticeable unless you are looking for it, but the effect on the listener is definitely noticeable over the long term. It was my first foray into micro-tuning, and I was very moved by this music presented this way.
Keep your eyes and ears open for the CD release!!
Frederic