Thomas Alexandrovich de Hartmann (; October 3 [O.S.: September 21], 1884Thomas de Hartmann’s birthdate is generally stated as being 21 September 1885, but his birth record has been found in the baptismal records of Mikhailovsky church in Khoruzhivka, Ukraine, which shows that 21 September is the O.S. date, and the year is in fact 1884. This church record (in Russian) can be seen at: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CS9Y-FSZ1-G?i=91&cat=982910, image 92March 28, 1956) was a Ukrainian-born composer, pianist and professor of composition.
Life De Hartmann was born on his father's estate in Khoruzhivka, Poltava Governorate, Russian Empire (now Ukraine), to Alexander Fomich de Hartmann and Olga Alexandrovna de Hartmann, née de Kross, both of German descent. On his father’s death, when he was nine years old, he was sent by his mother to the First Cadet Corps, the same military school his father had attended, and later the Page Corps. Upon graduation from the Page Corps, de Hartmann entered into the Russian Imperial Guard.
In the fall of 1896, at the age of 11, de Hartmann began individual lessons with Anton Arensky, and continued them until Arensky’s death in 1906. At that time, de Hartmann chose Sergei Taneyev as his new musical mentor. He took lessons on counterpoint from Taneyev, and they remained friends till Taneyev’s death. De Hartmann graduated from the Imperial Conservatory of Music, where he studied musical composition with Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. His piano teacher was Anna Yesipova (the second wife and former student of Theodor Leschetizky).
In 1906, de Hartmann met Olga Arkadievna de Schumacher, daughter of Arkady Alexandrovich von Schumacher (June 7, 1855 - June 8, 1938), Head of the Debt Repayment Commission in St. Petersburg, and Olga Konstantinovna von Wulffert (1860 - April 3, 1939), who both died in Paris. They married on 25 November [O.S. 12 November] 1906. In the same year, de Hartmann began composing what would prove to be the most ambitious production of his career – La Fleurette rouge, a ballet in 5 acts and 8 scenes, of 3 hours duration. It was first performed in December, 1907, at the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, produced by Nikolay Legat with Vaslav Nijinsky and Tamara Karsavina in the cast, and later, in 1911, at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow. De Hartmann dedicated La Fleurette rouge to his wife.
It was while his ballet was being performed in repertory that de Hartmann wanted to take lessons on conducting from Felix Mottl in Munich, Germany, but as he was in military service, he was barred from travelling abroad. At that time, Grand Duchess Olga, the youngest sister of Tsar Nicolas II, liked to play the violin, and de Hartmann would sometimes accompany her on the piano. When the Grand Duchess learned that de Hartmann wanted to study with Mottl, she arranged for the Tsar to meet de Hartmann, and as a result, de Hartmann was put into the military reserves, allowing him to travel abroad.
In 1908, de Hartmann went to Munich to work with Mottl, and there he met Wassily Kandinsky. At this time, de Hartmann was becoming disenchanted with traditional harmonization, and Kandinsky's avant-garde approach to art was very attractive to him. The two collaborated on various stage works, but none was performed in their lifetimes.
While in Munich, Thomas de Hartmann met the artist, former Sufi student and later stage impresario, Alexander de Salzmann; they were both friends of Rainer Maria Rilke and Kandinsky.
From 1912 to 1914, de Hartmann divided his time between Munich and his estate in Khoruzhivka, working on various compositions and stage productions. When war was declared in 1914, de Hartmann was recalled to military service and moved to Tsarskoye Selo, where his regiment was located.
In December, 1916 de Hartmann met George Gurdjieff, who became his spiritual teacher. De Hartmann and his wife met with Gurdjieff in St. Petersburg a few times before being assigned, in late February, 1917, to the reserve forces near the Austrian front in Ukraine. He travelled to Kiev, and his wife followed him, staying with de Hartmann's sister who was living there. In April, 1917, de Hartmann was assigned to Masslennikov and Shmyakov, members of the State Duma, and later that month he was reassigned to travel with Rodzyanko. They all travelled to Minsk to attend the first congress of representatives of the Western Front. Later, de Hartmann would introduce de Salzmann and Gurdjieff to each other.
In August, 1917, the Main Artillery Directorate sent de Hartmann to Rostov-on-the-Don to "speed up the production of a model of [his] system of anti-airplane machines." (He had previously invented a kind of periscope arrangement for firing guns from the trenches without the soldiers poking their heads out to aim. It had been accepted by the army and had begun production, but it was too late to save the Russian army, and was obsolete by the time of the Second World War.)
In November, 1917, while he was travelling, he fell ill with typhoid in Sochi, and was granted leave for three months, whereupon he rejoined Gurdjieff, who had moved to Yessentuki. He was released from military service in February, 1918, and continued to stay and work with Gurdjieff, later travelling with him to Tiflis (Tbilisi). In 1919, de Hartmann was appointed Professor of Music at the Tiflis Conservatory, and during this time, he wrote music for a pair of stage productions. In 1920, the de Hartmanns travelled with Gurdjieff to Constantinople, and, from there, to Berlin in 1921, Paris in 1922, then in October, 1922, moved into the Prieuré d'Avon in Fontainebleau, south of Paris. The de Hartmanns remained there with Gurdjieff until 1929.
In June, 1929, de Hartmann broke with Gurdjieff and moved to Courbevoie with his wife's parents. His wife continued to work with Gurdjieff, splitting her time between the Prieuré and Courbevoie, finally leaving Gurdjieff for good at the beginning of 1930. At this time, to make a living, de Hartmann arranged the orchestral music of other composers for chamber groups, which could be played more cheaply on the radio, and he wrote music for films.Condensed from Our Life with Mr. Gurdjieff (1983), The "Definitive Edition" substantially enlarged from the original 1964 edition via the inclusion of unpublished materials and drawing upon the memoirs of Olga de Hartmann (co-authored with Olga de Hartmann, who was Gurdjieff's personal secretary for many years.). Arkana Books.
Having established an income from the royalties of his arrangements and film music, the de Hartmanns lived first in Courbevoie, then in Garches, south of Paris until 1950. De Hartmann had his orchestral music conducted by such conductors as Bigot, Stokowski, and others, and his concertos and sonatas were played by such soloists as Casals, Tortelier, Rampal, and Alèz.
In 1950, at the request of Jeanne de Salzmann after Gurdjieff’s death, the de Hartmanns moved to the United States to support the Gurdjieff work there, first joining Frank Lloyd Wright at Taliesin, then moving to New York. De Hartmann, who had become well-known in Europe, had to start again from the beginning in the new world to build up his reputation. As he said in a letter to Frank Lloyd Wright, "…to be played on the radio – it is necessary to be famous. In order to be famous, it is necessary to be played on the radio."Undated letter in Russian from Thomas de Hartmann to Olgivanna Lloyd Wright in the Lloyd Wright collection, Columbia University [a photocopy of this letter is in the Thomas de Hartmann collection, Montreal]. Dated to April, 1953, by reference to Russian Easter, and to the letter dated April 9, 1953, from Olgivanna Lloyd Wright to Thomas de Hartmann in the Thomas de Hartmann collection, Montreal, which is an answer to this letter. He was hampered by ill health, and spent much of his time working on publications of the Gurdjieff/de Hartmann music.
De Hartmann suffered a heart attack in 1954, and was ill for some time. He gradually recovered, and his last year was very productive – he was working on his Fourth Symphony and preparing to play for a recital of his works in New York, when he suffered a fatal heart attack on March 28, 1956. After his death, his wife continued to promote his music until her death at her home near Nambé, Santa Fe County, New Mexico. Both she and her husband are buried in the Princeton Cemetery, Princeton, New Jersey.
Association with Anton Arensky De Hartmann first met Anton Stepanovich Arensky in the fall of 1896. One Sunday, when he was visiting his aunt, who was a friend of Arensky’s mother and sister, she took him to Arensky’s house so that he could hear de Hartmann play piano. Arensky gave him a theme on which to improvise, and having heard the result, accepted de Hartmann as his only pupil. De Hartmann finished the Conservatory course under Arensky’s tutelage, learning harmony, strict style, fugue and free composition.
He remained Arensky’s pupil until Arensky’s death in 1906. Arensky’s influence on de Hartmann might best be summarized by a statement of Taneyev’s. One day, when de Hartmann visited Taneyev with part of his ballet La Fleurette rouge, Taneyev asked de Hartmann to play it on the piano, while he and other guests who were there listened. At the end, Taneyev said: “Your harmony can be compared only with Arensky’s harmony. This is the highest compliment that I can give you.”De Hartmann wrote a memoir titled S. Iv. Taneyev (Reminiscences and conclusions). This material about Arensky is condensed and translated from part of this unpublished memoire, which is in the de Hartmann collection, Montreal.
Association with Sergei Taneyev De Hartmann first met Sergei Ivanovich Taneyev at Arensky’s house when he was still at the conservatory. He had with him some exercises in harmony from the conservatory, and Taneyev sat at the piano and analyzed them, along with Modest Tchaikovsky and Felix Blumenfeld who were also there visiting Arensky. After this, de Hartmann did not see Taneyev for several years.
De Hartmann renewed his acquaintance with Taneyev when Arensky was unwell and living in Finland. In the fall of 1905, de Hartmann had finished the orchestration of one act of the ballet and wanted feedback about it. He decided to drop in on Taneyev to show him the ballet. Taneyev very cordially received his friend’s pupil.
After Arensky’s death in 1906, de Hartmann dropped in on Taneyev on the way to his estate, and de Hartmann invited him to come to stay at his estate in Ukraine during the summer. Taneyev visited that year and the next, Taneyev instructing de Hartmann in counterpoint and fugue during this time.
Taneyev was de Hartmann’s mentor during his years of doubt, when he felt that traditional music was at a dead end, and he wanted to find a new path. As de Hartmann wrote in his memoir about Taneyev: “I had passed Strict Style and Forms with Arensky, but I also wished to study Fugue with Taneyev. At that time, it had already started to slowly become clear to me that the time has come to look for new ways in music. Neither then or now did I stop liking the composers, particularly the Russian ones, which I had already liked as a boy. Of course, I particularly liked my teacher Arensky, The Five [Mily Balakirev, César Cui, Modest Mussorgsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Alexander Borodin], Glazunov, Rachmaninov and others, and I still do. But it is one thing to like them. The other was my own composition. Here it was necessary to search for something new. And so, before this search I wished to know all the previous techniques. That was the time when questions were still alive. So I began to work with Taneyev on the fugue.”From the memoir titled S. Iv. Taneyev (Reminiscences and conclusions) in the de Hartmann collection, Montreal.