The law of three and the law of seven: Larry Sitsky's violin concerto no. 2 (1983) and the influence of Georges Gurdjieff

Abstract

This article explores the compositional preoccupations of Australian composer, Larry Sitsky (b.1934), through an analysis of his Violin Concerto No 2: ‘Gurdjieff’ (1983) in relation to its source of musical and extra-musical inspiration, the early twentieth-century Greek-Armenian philosopher and guru Georges Gurdjieff, to whose teachings Sitsky was introduced by the violinist for whom he wrote the concerto, his friend Jan Sedivka. Characteristics of Gurdjieff's music are present in the melodic, harmonic and rhythmic material of Sitsky's concerto. More importantly, the guru's teachings on the Law of Three and the Law of Seven underlie the unique structure of the work on both macro- and micro-levels: the movement structure, the character of each movement, the relationships between the instruments, and even the variation and development of motives.