March 21, 2024

Modest Mussorgsky ~ Pictures at an Exhibition

 ~    
English: The cover of the first edition of Mussorgsky's Picture at the Exhibition (edited by Rimsky-Korsakov).
Русский: Обложка первого издания «Картинок с выставки» М. П. Мусоргского (под редакцией Н. А. Римского-Корсакова).
 
Deutsch: Das Titelblatt der ersten Ausgabe von Modest Mussorgskis „Bilder einer Ausstellung“ (bearbeitet von Rimski-Korsakoff). Die Aufschrift lautet:

Владиміру Васльевичу Стасову
Картинки съ выставки
Десять пьесъ для фортепіано
Модеста Мусоргскаго

A Monsieur Wladimir Stassoff
„Tableaux d’une exposition“
Série de dix pièces
POUR PIANO
PAR
MODESTE MOUSSORGSKY

  
  
Today, March 21, is the birthday of Russian composer, librettist, director, and playwright Modest Mussorgsky who was born in 1839. He was one of a group known as "The Five" and an innovator of Russian music in the Romantic period. He strove to achieve a uniquely Russian musical identity, often in deliberate defiance of the established conventions of Western music.       


Modest Mussorgsky
 date & photographer unknown
 
 
Many of his works were inspired by Russian folklore, history and other national themes some of which include the opera Boris Godunov, the orchestral tone poem Night on Bald Mountain and the piano suite Pictures at an Exhibition.       
 
Pictures at an Exhibition is based on paintings in an exhibition at the Imperial Academy of Arts in Saint Petersburg by the artist, architect, and designer Viktor Hartmann who with Mussorgsky, was devoted to the cause of an intrinsically Russian art. Each movement of the suite is based on an individual work from that exhibition.            


date & photographer unknown

 
As with most of Mussorgsky's works, Pictures at an Exhibition has a complicated publication history. Although composed very rapidly, during June 1874, the work did not appear in print until 1886, five years after the composer's death, when an edition by the composer's friend and colleague Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov was published. This edition, however, was not a completely accurate representation of Mussorgsky's score but presented a revised text that contained a number of errors and misreadings.  
 
In 1922, Maurice Ravel wrote an adaptation for orchestra and it is the most recorded and performed. There have been dozens of interpretations of Pictures by world renown classical music conductors as well as popular musicians over the years.     
 
 


The suite has inspired covers in a broad range of popular musical styles. The Emerson, Lake & Palmer version incorporated elements of progressive rock, jazz and folk music. An electronic music adaptation by Isao Tomita was done in 1975 and in 2005, Animusic 2 created an amazing animation that included a track entitled Cathedral Pictures, which used only the first Promenade and the final two movements from the suite arranged by Tomita. On the topic of animation, one unforgettable endeavor was the 1940 Walt Disney animation Fantasia which used Night on Bald Mountain. I remember when I was a little kid I loved Fantasia but this segment totally creeped me out!       
         
In 1984 the metal band, Armored Saint, utilised the Great Gate of Kyiv theme as an introduction for the track March of the Saint in the album of the same name. In 1990 a heavy metal arrangement of the entire suite was released by the German band Mekong Delta; In 2002, electronic musician-composer Amon Tobin paraphrased Gnomus for the track Back From Space on his album Out from Out Where. In 2003 guitarist-composer Trevor Rabin released an electric guitar adaptation of the Promenade that was originally intended for the Yes album Big Generator but later included on his compilation album, 90124. The Michael Jackson song HIStory samples a short section of The Great Gate of Kiev.           

     
     



Viewfinder links:         
        
Viktor Hartmann           
Michael Jackson ~ HIStory                 
Modest Mussorgsky         
Trevor Rabin         
Maurice Ravel          
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov                 
Amon Tobin        
Isao Tomita        
        
Net links:         
        
Animusic 2        
         
         
         
         
        
YouTube links:         
Animusic 2 ~  Pictures at an exhibition                    
Armored Saint ~ March of the Saint         
Walt Disney - Night on Bald Mountain        
Emerson, Lake & Palmer ~ Pictures At An Exhibition (Complete album)     
Michael Jackson ~ HIStory        
Mekong Delta ~ Pictures At An Exhibition (Complete album)      
Trevor Rabin ~ Promenade            
Amon Tobin ~ Back From Space       
Isao Tomita ~ Pictures At An Exhibition (Complete album)     
           
         
         
         
         
         
Styrous® ~ Thursday, March 21, 2024       
        
 
 





















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