Modest Mussorgsky was an innovative composer of Russian music during the Romantic period. Mussorgsky drew from Russian folklore and culture to create a uniquely Russian sound full of vivid realism, wildness, and extreme melancholy. Many of his works also contain extra-musical associations, referencing other artistic mediums in his compositions.
Pictures at an Exhibition, composed in 1874, is a suite of ten piano pieces inspired by Mussorgsky’s visit to a memorial exhibit held in St. Petersburg of paintings by his late friend, artist and architect Victor Hartman. Mussorgsky’s aim was to capture the attitude and atmosphere of these paintings in music. Each movement of this work corresponds to a painting, with the exception of the recurring theme called “Promenade,” representing the visitor walking between the pictures.
Here is a performance of two (“Gnomus” and “Il vecchio castello”) of the ten movements. More information about each movement can be found here.
In 1922, Russian conductor Serge Koussevitzky commissioned Maurice Ravel to arrange the composition for orchestra, and it has since become a staple of orchestral repertoire. It is interesting to compare Ravel's interpretation and arrangement for orchestra to Mussorgsky's original score.
Watch here as the National Philharmonic of Russia performs Ravel's orchestration of the same movements.
I've been thinking about re-imagining this course around the concept of ekphrasis, or art about art, so that I could bring more actual ART into the reading/discussion. This piece would definitely fit. I'd love to see the paintings that inspired the music and try to measure how the music "describes" the images.
ReplyDeleteI admit that I like the orchestral arrangement more than the piano piece. I wonder if that says something about me?
BTW -- One of the side links on Youtube includes an oddball version by Emerson, Lake, and Palmer.