# Anyone else underwhelmed by the actual pictures of Mussorgsky's PaaE?



## Goddess Yuja Wang (Aug 8, 2017)

Pictures at an Exhibition, in its original piano presentation and in Ravel's orchestration version, is one of my beloved pieces of all time in this world.
I can't believe it never occurred to me to look the pictures up, until this evening when I played the suite to my wife. She's the one who asked me about them, so I found them...

This is probably quite silly, and I don't even know what I was expecting, or what I pictured in my mind, but just having seen the pictures that inspired Modest, I felt quite underwhelmed (by the ones we have).

Especially the Great Gate of Kiev.... The music is so majestic and awe-inspiring... I suppose I was expecting something a little more... dramatic? Bigger? Something more fitting for the great music he wrote?

And how about the Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks? Hmmmm....

However, I will always be thankful Mussorgsky went to the exhibition and got such amazing inspiration from the pictures. But I can't help wondering how much of it was _really_ inspired by the actual pictures. He was such a genius that he probably would have written something as great just by looking at a boring newspaper text clip.

What do you think?

http://www.stmoroky.com/reviews/gallery/pictures/hartmann.htm


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Considering that "most of the works that inspired the composer are lost, either yet undiscovered or, sadly, destroyed by time and neglect," I'd rather leave it to my imagination as far as what Hartmann works may have inspired the composer. 

As a work for the piano, "Pictures..." is one of my all-time favorites and able to reveal a great deal about the person playing it. I prefer it on piano rather than the Ravel orchestration. Ravel was a perfectionist, but I doubt that Mussorgsky was, at least in his personal habits and lifestyle. So I like to imagine Mussorgsky playing the work himself after perhaps a vodka or two rather than imagining Ravel orchestrating it while wearing his impeccably polished shoes. (PS. This thread might have been better off in the Classical Musical Discussion.)


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

---duplicate---


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## helenora (Sep 13, 2015)

moved to movies thread.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

I love the music, in most incarnations, but I agree that the pictures themselves are underwhelming.


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## TxllxT (Mar 2, 2011)

Well, it's the same as with so many poetry that has been set to music, isn't it?


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## Goddess Yuja Wang (Aug 8, 2017)

Larkenfield said:


> (PS. This thread might have been better off in the Classical Musical Discussion.)


I thought about it, but I was not sure if this post was serious enough for that section of the forum.

Oh, by the way... I understand there are at least 2 more orchestrated versions of the work, correct?

Who are the other orchestrators? I'd love to listen to them and compare to the Ravel 

Also, I've read great reviews here on Sviatoslav Richter's interpretation. I watched one of the YouTube videos, and, while I really liked most of his performance, I thought the opening was too loud and harshly played. 
I think I enjoy more Khatia's interpretation over all, especially the very beginning. It sounds to me gentler and more elegant (I run for cover  ).

Do you like her take on the work?

Live Performance>






Interview>


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

I quite like the pictures that were done by William Neal for Emerson Lake and Palmer's PaaE album sleeve (even though only four of Mussorgsky's original pieces were covered).


I never saw Viktor Hartmann's surviving pictures until recently which might help to explain why in my ignorance I always imagined 'Schmuyler' to be Samuel Goldenberg's pet dog rather than another person.


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## David Phillips (Jun 26, 2017)

I think the fact that since the 1950s, Hartmann's pictures have rarely - if ever - been used to illustrate LP or CD covers of Mussorgsky's music tells its own story. They are very underwhelming.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

You want to be disappointed? Go to the Vienna stream that was supposedly the inspiration for the second movement of Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony. Beethoven had some kind of imagination to convert that sorry excuse of a trickle into a bubbling brook!


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