Pictures at an Exhibition

 
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MUSSORGSKY
Pictures at an Exhibition
Alexander Warenberg (piano) / Gewandhausorchester Leipzig, Igor Markevitch

[ Brilliant Classics / 2 CD ]

Release Date: Sunday 30 November 2014

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The drunken sot who glares out at us from Ilya Repin's celebrated portrait looks more like a tramp than a composer, and Mussorgsky's music has a similarly uncompromising expressive power, music that seems to work despite rather than because of itself. Pianists have wrestled with the unpianistic corners of his most famous work since he composed it in 1874 in memory of his friend, the painter Viktor Hartmann, who had died the previous year. Mussorgsky portrayed some of Hartmann's pictures in music when they were displayed at an exhibition in Saint Petersburg. The cycle of ten individual paintings is linked by
the famous 'promenade', symbolizing the viewer of the pictures wandering through the exhibition. Hartmann's bold and puzzling vignettes find their perfect
analogue in Mussorgsky's pianistic reimagining, but fellow composers could
hardly leave the orchestral potential of this often‐awkward music alone. Ravel wasn't the first to mix his orchestral palette with Mussorgsky's colours, but his version has justly stood the test of time, and stands alone for its sensitivity to the pungent, folkloristic flavour of the original.

Here is a rare and useful opportunity to compare the two versions side by side, completed by more music by Mussorgsky both wellknown
(Night on Bare Mountain) and perhaps less familiar (assorted miniatures
that make up the rest of the composer's slender output for piano).

"Ravel's orchestration of Pictures, performed with freshness and vision by Markevitch and the Leipzig Gewandhaus" (BBC Music Magazine, February 2015)

Tracks:

CD1
Pictures at an Exhibition (orch. Maurice Ravel)
1 Promenade 1'29
2 No.1 Gnomus 2'34
3 Promenade 0'56
4 No.2 Il vecchio castello 3'35
5 Promenade 0'28
6 No.3 Tuileries 1'15
7 No.4 Bydlo 2'59
8 Promenade 0'44
9 No.5 Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks 1'18
10 No.6 Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle 2'41
11 No.7 Limoges: The Market 1'22
12 No.8 Catacombae: Sepulcrum romanum - Con mortuis in lingua mortua 3'53
13 No.9 The Hut on Fowl's Legs 3'45
14 No.10 The Great Gate of Kiev 5'21

15 Night on Bare Mountain (ed. & orch. Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov) 10'24

Total time 43'01

Gewandhausorchester Leipzig
Igor Markevitch


CD2
Pictures at an Exhibition (original piano version)
1 Promenade - No.1 Gnomus 3'56
2 Promenade - No.2 Il vecchio castello 5'09
3 Promenade - No.3 Tuileries 1'30
4 No.4 Bydlo 3'10
5 Promenade - No.5 Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks 1'56
6 No.6 Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle 1'52
7 Promenade - No.7 Limoges: The Market 2'59
8 No.8 Catacombae: Sepulcrum romanum - Con mortuis in lingua mortua 3'39
9 No.9 The Hut on Fowl's Legs 3'04
10 No.10 The Great Gate of Kiev 5'35

Pyotr Il'yich Tchaikovsky 1840-1893
The Seasons Op.37b
11 January: By the Fireside 4'48
12 February: Shrovetide Festival 2'54
13 March: Song of the Lark 1'40
14 April: Snowdrop 2'08
15 May: White Nights 4'13
16 June: Barcarolle 3'42
17 July: Song of the Reaper 1'43
18 August: Harvest 3'09
19 September: The Hunt 2'55
20 October: Autumn Song 3'24
21 November: Troika 2'38
22 December: Yuletide 3'45

Total time
70'00
Alexander Warenberg piano