# Picture this...



## itywltmt (May 29, 2011)

To provide a break between the two sets of Debussy Preludes for Piano, I thought I would dig into some of the French posts I have written elsewhere, and muse a bit about *Mussorgsky*'s _Pictures at an Exhibition_.

The story behind the work is well known - Piictures is a tribute by Mussorgsky to his late friend *Viktor Hartmann*, and is a suite of short pastiches that represent some of Hartmann's artwork, assorted with "glue-like" _promenades _that depict Mussorgsky walking through an exhibition of Hartmann's works.

I think it is fair to say that we have been equally exposed to the original piano suite by Musorgsky and to the very popular orchestration by *Maurice Ravel*. For my money, the piano original is completely satisfactory, pompous at times yes, but so personal. Here's a link to a complete performance by pianist Alexander Ghindin:

http://traffic.libsyn.com/gardnermuseum/mussorgsky__Pictures.mp3

As it turns out, Pictures is one of those piano works that has been adapted for other instruments, and for full orchestra. I would estimate there are _well-over 50_ published transcriptions of the work! *Leopold Stokowski* (who will himself author one such transcription) suggests that even the piano version may have been tinkered with in the first place by hands other than Mussorgsky's. Indeed, he claims that *Rimsky-Korsakov* may have introduced a pair of passages in 1886 ("Tuileries" and "Limoges").

Here are a few specific examples of orchestrations of the work, presented here in chronological order:

The "Father of the Proms", *Sir Henry Wood*, pens his own orchestration in 1915. This version was discussed in a past Chroinique du Disque:

BBC Proms 2010: Mussorgsky - Pictures at an Exhibition - YouTube

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The most popular version of Pictures for orchestra is that penned in 1922 by *Maurice Ravel* under comission by Boston Symphony conductor Serge Koussevitzky. In what must be viewed as a brilliant move, Koussevitzky personally published the work, giving him exclusive rights to the work for sereval years. Here is a YouTube performance of the suite :

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLE4379431C36C3EA0

Due to Kopussevitzy's monoply on the Ravel score, many conductors tried to have their own versions developed. One such version was commissioned by Eugene Ormandy to the Philadelphia Orchestra's resident arranger *Lucien Caillet*, which Ormandy and the orchestra committed to vinyl in 1937:

Eugene Ormandy, 1937 - Mussorgsky, Pictures at an Exhibition - YouTube

(Hyperlionk to an MP3 version : http://archive.org/details/Moussorgsky-cailletPicturesAtAnExhibition)

Leopold Stokowski is one of the first conductors other than Koussevitzky to have performed the Ravel version (Philadelphia, 1929), but concludes the Ravel version is too French and not Slavic enough to his taste. About 10 years later, he will propose his own orchestration which - not suepeisingly - omits the "french" pictures _Limoges_and _Tuileries_:

http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3146AFF1BDBF5557

And there are so many more… Whuich begs the question - which one is the best transcription. Conductor Leonard Slatkin, rather than answering the question, chose to approach the problem differently, choosing rather to stitch a concert suite made up of some of his favourite individual pictures from these (and other) orchestrations.

Bel;ow is a video clip of that performance, preceeded by a short documentary on the Pictures and the orchestrations, and then some words by maestro Slatkin on the podium. The actual performance begins around 18:30.
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*Lawrence Leonard*: Promenade
*Vladimir Ashkenazy*: Gnome
_Lucien Cailliet_: Promenade
*Sergei Gorchakov*: The Old Castle
*Leonidas Leonardi*: Promenade/Les Tuileries
_Sir Henry Wood_: Bydlo
_Lucien Cailliet_: Promenade, Ballet of the chicks in their shells
*Sergei Gorchakov*: Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle
_Lucien Cailliet_: Promenade
*Mikhail Tushmalov*: Le marché de Limoges
_Leopold Stokowski_: Catacomb
_Sir Henry Wood_: Cum Mortuis in Lingua Mortua
_Maurice Ravel_: The Hut on Chicken Legs poule (Baba-Yaga)
_Maurice Ravel_: The Great Gate of Kiev
Encore - _Sir Henry Wood_: The Great Gate of Kiev






ç©†ç´¢æ-¯åŸºï¼šåœ-ç•«å±•è¦½æœƒ (ç‰¹åˆ«ç‰ˆ) Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition with Intro. - YouTube


*October 19, 2012, "I Think You Will Love This Music Too" will feature a new podcast "Birthdays: Claude Debussy - Part 1" at its Pod-O-Matic Channel. Read more October 19 on the ITYWLTMT Blogspot blog.*


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