“Life wherever it shows itself, truth no matter how bitter – to speak out boldly, sincerely, point-blank – this is what excites me!”
Modest Mussorgsky –
Welcome, dear reader, to another installment here at For The Love of Tunes! In this article, we will look at Modest Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition” and, as we try to do in each of these online scribblings, consider some recordings of the music that you can reflect upon at your leisure.
A Little History
Of the events in one’s life that can have the most profound impact, it’s hard to top the death of a family member, a loved one, or a friend. I’ve experienced this myself, and I’m still figuring out what it means. In the case of “Pictures at an Exhibition,” Mussorgsky’s struggle with the emotions surrounding the death of his dear friend, the artist Victor Hartmann, eventually resulted in this marvelous work. On a Wednesday, “some day or other in June of 1874,” Mussorgsky wrote the following in a letter to his friend and music critic Vladimir Vasilyevich Stasov:
“My dear Generalissimo: Hartmann is boiling as Boris boiled – the sound and the idea hung in the air, and now I am gulping and overeating. I can hardly manage to scribble it all down on paper… I want to do it as quickly and steadily as possible. My physiognomy can be seen in the intermezzi. I consider it successful so far. I embrace you, and I take it that you bless me – so give me your blessing! Musoryianin V(orte) S(erviteur).”
Not long after sending the above, Mussorgsky completed the work and attached the following inscription: “Dedicated to Vladimir Vasilyevich Stasov, Pictures at an Exhibition, M. Mussorgsky’s souvenir of Victor Hartmann, 1874“
The “Boris” that Mussorgsky was referring to in his letter to Stusov was regarding his opera Boris Godunov, which he completed in 1872. In July of the following year, Mussorgsky’s good friend, Victor Hartmann, passed away suddenly at the young age of just 39. In January of 1874, a memorial exhibition of Hartmann’s watercolors, drawings, and architectural designs was arranged, and it was this event that so inspired Mussorgsky to pen Pictures at an Exhibition. The French music critic M. D. Calvocoressi later remarked, “Nothing could characterize Mussorgsky’s own art more sharply than the complete absence of subjective emotion from a composition directly inspired by a deeply felt personal loss.”
Before we get into the music itself, I want to share some tidbits about Mussorgsky himself that I learned while researching for this article. In 1839, Modest Petrovitch Moussorgsky was born into an impoverished noble clan, and he was, by all accounts, a pretty gloomy sort of person. By one account in particular, he “bore poverty, drink, depression, and the pricks of life as an army officer and civil servant, and furthermore, the contempt of a cultural elite that considered him to be a bungler.” Part of that latter sentiment stemmed from the fact that Mussorgsky was not formally trained in music; everything he knew, he learned on his own. He eventually befriended a group of composers that would become known as the “Russian Five” after Mussorgsky himself joined their ranks. These were (Mily)Balakirev, (Alexander)Borodin, (Cesar)Cui, and (Nikolai)Rimsky-Korsakov. Cui remarked that Mussorgsky’s work was “loose, indiscriminate, complacent, and hasty.” Of the “Five,” Rimsky-Korsakov looked after Mussorgsky the most. He, with the best of intentions at heart, was continually revising Mussorgsky’s pages to correct “blunders” in harmony, counterpoint, and more. While he lived, Mussorgsky was estimated to be the least of the famous nonconformists, but in death, he became the most celebrated. He is still seen today as the most original and seminal of that lauded group, and his opera, Boris Godounov, is considered a masterpiece in the genre.
The Music
Pictures at an Exhibition was written in 1874 for solo piano and was inspired by a select few paintings out of the four hundred Hartmann works on display during the aforementioned memorial event. Mussorgsky chose ten pictures for the music he would eventually write, and the titles for each became the names of each movement. To demonstrate the composer moving from one picture to the next, he added a “Promenade” theme in between almost every movement.
Before we go on, I wonder, dear reader, if you, like me, hear some music almost all the time to go along with life’s events. I’m sure you do, and I’m also certain you would agree that something like Pictures at an Exhibition certainly benefited from being orchestrated. The piano, while a wonderful instrument and this piece quite the show-stopper at piano competitions, has its limits. A piece like this one begs for a treatment by a full symphony orchestra. Thankfully, in 1920, Serge Koussevitsky, the well-known conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, asked Maurice Ravel to orchestrate Mussorgsky’s famous piano composition for full orchestra (more on that later). Over the years, many composers have tried their hand at orchestrating Pictures, but Ravel’s is by far the most well-known and most frequently performed, and it is that version we will be reviewing.
The movements run as follows, with program notes from Vladimir Stasov himself:
Stasov’s note on the opening Promenade: In this piece Mussorgsky depicts himself “roving through the exhibition, now leisurely, now briskly in order to come close to a picture that had attracted his attention, and at times sadly, thinking of his departed friend.” Trumpets alone present the Promenade theme, after which the full orchestra joins them for the most extended statement of the theme’s several subsequent appearances.
Gnomus: Stasov’s note: “A sketch depicting a little gnome, clumsily running with crooked legs.” The Hartmann sketch is of a carved wooden nutcracker in the form of a wizened gnome who breaks the shells in his jaws. The music lurches, twitches, and snaps grotesquely.
Promenade: Horn initiates the theme in a gentle mood and the wind choir follows suit.
Il vecchio castello (The Old Castle): Stasov’s note: “A medieval castle before which a troubadour sings a song.” Hartmann’s old castle is in Italy. Bassoons evoke a lonely scene: A troubador (English horn) sings a sad song, at first to a lute-like accompaniment in violas and cellos.
Promenade: trumpet and trombones with full orchestra.
Tuileries (Children’s Quarrel after Games): Stasov’s note: “An avenue in the garden of the Tuileries, with a swarm of children and nurses.” The scene is set immediately with taunting wind chords and sassy string figures, and then Mussorgsky’s children prank, quarrel, and frolic spiritedly in the famous Parisian gardens.
Bydlo (Cattle): Stasov’s note: “A Polish cart on enormous wheels, drawn by oxen.” A Polish peasant drives an oxcart whose wheels lumber along steadily (with rhythmic regularity) and painfully (heavy-laden melody in brass).
Promenade: Winds, beginning with flutes, then in turn oboes and bassoons, do the walking, this time with tranquil steps.
Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks: Stasov’s note: “Hartmann’s design for the décor of a picturesque scene in the ballet Trilby.” The Hartmann chicks are the ballet dancers in eggshell costumes. Mussorgsky moves from oxcart to fowlyard with disarming ease.
Two Polish Jews, One Rich, the Other Poor: The names Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle were later additions to the title of this section, having no authority in Mussorgsky’s score. The composer satirizes the pair through haughty pronouncements from the patriarch (winds and strings) and nervous subservience from the beggar (stuttering trumpets).
Limoges, the Market Place (The Great News): Stasov’s note: “French women quarrelling violently in the market.” The bustle and excitement of peasant women in the French city’s market are brilliantly depicted.
Catacombs (Roman Tomb) – With the Dead in a Dead Language: Stasov’s note: “Hartmann represented himself examining the Paris catacombs by the light of a lantern.” The music trudges through the ancient catacombs in Rome on the way to a mournful, minor-key statement of the Promenade theme, titled by Mussorgsky, in Latin – Cum mortuis in lingua mortua (With the dead in a dead language).
The Hut on Fowl’s Legs (Baba Yaga): Stasov’s note: “Hartmann’s drawing depicted a clock in the form of Baba Yaga’s hut on hen’s legs. Mussorgsky added the witch’s flight in a mortar.” Baba Yaga, a witch who lives in a hut supported by chicken legs, rides through the air demonically with Mussorgsky’s best Bald Mountain pictorialism.
The Bogatyr Gates (In the Capital in Kiev) or The Great Gate of Kiev: Stasov’s note: “Hartmann’s sketch was his design for city gates at Kiev in the ancient Russian massive style with a cupola shaped like a slavonic helmet.” Ceremonial grandeur, priestly chanting, the clanging of bells, and the Promenade theme create a singularly majestic canvas that is as conspicuously Russian to the ear as Hartmann’s fanciful picture of the Gate is to the eye.
Orrin Howard – written for the LA Phil (with notes by Stasov from the original program, which I added)
It may interest you to know that the original publishers of Mussorgsky’s piano score, W. Bessel & Co., saw no particular value in the solo piano work, and so, when in 1920, Koussevitzky commissioned Ravel to write an orchestration of the work, he negotiated exclusivity rights to the resulting composition for a period of six years following the premiere (whenever that happened to be). This meant that only Koussevitzky could conduct the work with any orchestra he chose for quite some time. The first performance of Ravel’s labors came on October 19, 1922, at the Paris Opera. Due to the unusual nature of the agreement Koussevitzky made with W. Bessel & Co., he was also able to publish the Ravel score independently of the original publishers, and he was also the first to record the work with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1930. This oversight on the publisher’s part led to many other composers taking a crack at orchestrating the original piano score. In fact, after seeing Koussevitzky’s massive success with Ravel’s orchestration, W. Bessel & Co. commissioned an orchestration themselves as a way to regain some of the money they’d thrown away on their original blunder with Koussevitzky. They reached out to one of Ravel’s students, an up-and-coming composer named Leonidas Leonardi, to write something to compete. He had the arrangement completed by 1924, and in June of that year, the composer conducted the premiere in Paris with the Lamoureux Orchestra and dedicated the work to Igor Stravinsky. Since W. Bessel & Co. couldn’t touch the Ravel composition, the Leonardi version started to be performed by other orchestras. After the Paris premiere, the new suite eventually made its way to the United States. It was premiered in December of the same year by the New York Symphony Orchestra under the baton of Walter Damrosch (son of orchestra founder Leopold Damrosch). The suite and performance were well-received, but it couldn’t hold a candle to the ever-growing popularity of the Ravel suite. Currently, the only way to hear what remains of the Leonardi version (the third Promenade and “Tuileries”) is to check out a recording by Leonard Slatkin and the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra.
More commissions came after the Leonardi in spite of the Ravel version’s continued popularity. As mentioned above, other orchestras wanted to perform the suite, so some notable versions emerged. In 1929, not long after Koussevitsky’s exclusivity rights expired, while still in charge of the Philadelphia Orchestra, Leopold Stokowski conducted the Ravel suite, but being who he was, he didn’t care for the arrangement all that much. Following Stokowski’s resignation in 1936, Eugene Ormandy wanted his own version, so he commissioned Lucien Cailliet to write a version of the work. Cailliet was the Philadelphia Orchestra’s “house arranger” and member of the woodwind section, so the commission could be done much more affordably than if Ormandy had pursued an outside composer to write his version. The Cailliet arrangement was recorded by Ormandy with the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1937. Two years later, in 1939, Stokowski produced his version in which he “re-composed” most of what Ravel had done to give what Stokowski decided it needed, a more Slavic sound.
Other famous musicians and conductors who have changed the Ravel score include Arturo Toscanini, James Conlon, and Vladimir Ashkenazy. Ashkenazy, too, wrote a complete orchestration after “expressing dissatisfaction with Ravel’s interpretive liberties and perpetuation of early printing errors.” The Ravel suite continues to inspire musicians to write their own arrangements and homages to this day.
The Fun Part – Notable Recordings
Before we get into some of my favorite recordings, I wanted to pause here for a moment and share a story about one live orchestral performance that sticks out in my mind. As I’ve said on this blog before, there is no replacement for experiencing an orchestra performance in person. I’m sure there are home theater rigs out there that can claim to come very close to the real thing, but it’s still a facsimile.
Several years ago, I attended a performance of Pictures at Heinz Hall in Pittsburgh, home of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. The performance was conducted by music director Manfred Honeck, and I will admit that as I took my seat, I was a little concerned about what I saw on stage. Whenever I arrive at a concert hall and see unusual instruments in the orchestra’s percussion section, it gives me pause. In this instance, it was a 12-foot yellow fiberglass Werner ladder, mostly clad in the black canvas cover of a concert grand piano, standing next to an equally tall and ridiculously large tubular chime. I have never seen something to match it before or since. The PSO performed the work beautifully, and as the orchestra worked through the final movement, I was first struck by the almost machine-like synchronicity of the bowing among the string players and then came the tubular chime I mentioned. It was hard not to chuckle as one of the percussionists, dressed in the then-typical formal concert attire (coat and tails), made his way up the ladder with a large mallet in hand. When the time came to strike the chime, he hit it so hard that his effort almost resulted in him falling off the very tall ladder. He recovered quickly, though, and the subsequent chime strikes resounded through the hall as the piece reached its glorious climax! Everyone in the audience was on their feet before the last echoes of the final notes had faded away. What an experience! Speaking of, as I write this, the Erie Philharmonic has Pictures on the current season schedule and will be performing it, and Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2, on March 23rd at the Warner Theater. The concert is at 8 PM. If you’re in the tri-state area, I hope you can make it out to hear the Phil perform this wonderful concert suite!
OK, now on to the recordings portion of our program (for real this time).
Where do we even begin? Due to the numerous versions that have been composed and recorded over the years, we, the listeners, are spoiled for choice.
I have several CDs (and a couple of LPs) of Pictures, but the first two recordings of this music I purchased were performed by The Cleveland Orchestra. One recording is under the direction of Lorin Maazel, and the other is under George Szell. Here’s what theaudiobeat.com had to say about the 1979 Maazel recording released by Telarc Digital:
Following a well-played, but fairly standard interpretation of Night on Bald Mountain, Lorin Maazel’s version of Pictures at an Exhibition emphasizes melodic line versus sheer impact of the big moments. Listeners are not shortchanged as the big, bold movements are still impactful, but Maazel chooses slightly quicker tempos in most movements, so the melodic lines of the “Promenade” interludes are hymn-like. For contrast, Reiner’s recording of Pictures with the Chicago Symphony is darker and more forceful; it looks for moments of stress, anguish or even terror. Maazel still manages to find drama, but tempers the contrasting movements with a gentler, singing style. One other stylistic feature is Maazel’s holding of notes at the end of phrases or inserting a small pause before moving to the next phrase. It gives extra interest and shape to melodic lines, an interpretation I’ve not heard in other recordings.
The Cleveland Orchestra’s strings are especially strong on this recording, with excellent unison intonation. Their octave work in the introduction to “Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle” is particularly good. Mussorgsky’s writing and Ravel’s arranging for low brass are played with gusto and a good measure of growl, while the upper-brass performance is effortless, even at the end of “Great Gate of Kiev.” The recording captures all the power and depth of bass-drum rolls, timpani, and the contrabassoon.
https://www.theaudiobeat.com/music/moussorgsky_pictures_telarc_lp.htm
The next Cleveland Orchestra recording is conducted by George Szell, and Gramophone Magazine referred to the trumpet playing as “nagging” in some parts, but overall, I think it’s spectacular. Szell was a marvelous interpreter, and this is evident in this recording, as it is in so many others he made while head of The Cleveland Orchestra.
Outside of the Erie Phil, The Cleveland Orchestra and Severance Hall constitute my orchestral “home away from home,” and as such, I’m an easy sell on anything The Cleveland Orchestra does. Under Szell, in particular, they grew into the world-renowned ensemble they are today.
Another conductor and orchestra pairing I favor is Claudio Abbado and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. Here’s an excerpt from a review by classicfm.com:
Both Claudio Abbado and Simon Rattle, at the helm of their mighty Berlin forces of 1993 and 2007 respectively, are equally powerful in this epic final picture – but not before they’ve let their ferocious German engines loose on the penultimate Baba-Yaga (The Hut On Fowl’s Legs), with perhaps Abbado the more disciplined and focused. In fact, overall, the Italian maestro is more searching and his recording has greater transparency and depth.
https://www.classicfm.com/composers/mussorgsky/guides/mussorgsky-pictures-exhibition/
A more recent recording that has received great reviews is by the Ukraine National Symphony Orchestra under Theodore Kuchar. The tempo is nicely paced throughout, and being fairly recent, it’s quite clear. The performance is well-spotted and nuanced, and the Great Gate of Kiev is sufficiently thunderous!
Before we wrap up, I wanted to share two YouTube videos here for your consideration. You know that “you should see it live” thing I’ve been banging away at? Well, these two are amazing examples of why I feel the way I do about live performances.
The first is the final movement, The Great Gate of Kiev, conducted by the incomparable Gustavo Dudamel leading the Simon Bolivar Symphony Orchestra. In this excerpt from what I can only imagine was an AMAZING concert, Dudamel doesn’t hold back at all, and his energy translates well through the young orchestra in front of him. Their performance is electric!
The next and last video for this article is very special. I don’t know how this made it to YouTube, but for a 1991 performance by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sir Georg Solti, an hour-long program that included a lecture by Solti, clips from the rehearsal, and the concert performance itself was captured. As you will hear, this performance and the audience’s reaction is exactly what I mean when discussing experiencing an orchestra performance in person.
At the conclusion, Maestro Solti barely has a chance to lower his baton before the audience explodes! It sounds more like a sporting event’s climax than most people imagine as your average concert performance.
I hope you’ll join us at The Warner Theater in Erie, PA, on March 23rd, 2024, when the Erie Philharmonic performs Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition (arr. Ravel). The orchestra will also be joined by renowned pianist Simone Dinnerstein, performing Brahms’ Piano Concerto No. 2 in B-flat major, Op. 83. More info on the concert here: https://www.eriephil.org/calendar/pictures
Additional Listening
Leonard Slatkin compiled and conducted a “greatest hits” of the various arrangements of Pictures. The music is performed by the Nashville Symphony Orchestra and Chorus.