Pictures at an Exhibition

Super unique, and I should be choosing some sort of Italian music, but I'm not.

We're going to do Pictures at an Exhibition by Mussorgsky.

Is that by Mussorgsky? I believe.

Maybe.

I don't know.

I believe, but...

in any case same situation where that is a wine that delivers on so many different levels so differently for every person just like the the different pieces through pictures at an exhibition

Okay.

This concert brings together two extraordinary works that are both intensely visual and very different in their conceptions.

Stravinsky's Petrushka, with its bustling fairground scenes and tragic puppet character, and Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, which takes the listener on a musical walk through an art gallery.

What connects these two pieces in your mind as a program?

Well, a couple of things.

Let's get to the music, and just a quick aside, some of these performances were recorded in less than ideal circumstances with rudimentary technology.

The Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky's 1874 work Pictures at an Exhibition, a series of short works each describing a painting, sketch or watercolour by Mussorgsky's friend Viktor Hartmann, who had died the previous year, is today best known as an incredible orchestral showcase.

But Mazowski actually wrote it for solo piano.

It was Maurice Ravel's orchestration 49 years later that gained the work its ongoing fame.

But in 1958, a recording of the piano version, performed live by a Russian pianist that some people in the West had heard of, but very few had heard a performance by, made its way out from behind the Iron Curtain.

This, for most people, would be their first encounter with Sviatoslav Richter.

Here are the two thrilling sections that conclude Mussorgsky's pictures at an exhibition, The Hut of Baba Yaga and The Great Gate of Kiev.

This is about eight minutes of music, and despite the rather poor recording quality, I hope you can hear the explosive brilliance of Richter's playing.

No, super excited.

Uh, I actually get to go to the concert tomorrow night, so I'm super excited to hear the orchestra play Pictures at an Exhibition.

You know, every student needs to play this during their college career at least once, so I'm really glad that they're getting this chance now.

And yes, they are doing the Ravel orchestration.

[laughs]

Well, and again, like, we've got, uh, two great concerts.

Again, the first one tonight is the Project 21 concert at 7:30 PM, and then we've got the orchestra concert tomorrow night, Friday, at 7:30 PM, with the, uh, kind of the, the, the, the, uh, home run piece being Pictures at an Exhibition.

Now, um, obviously we've, we're kind of at the halfway point of the semester.

It's sort of a miniature version of the entire program of this album, a musical journey from the Caribbean to the Andes.

Following the structure of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, each episode refers to a different element of Latin American cultural life captured in rhythm and song.

A melodic refrain, which in Golijov's Passion represents the spirit of Jesus Christ, transforms with each new occurrence, linking each of the pictures as a promenade, moving from Gregorian chant to Cuban guaracha.

Trifonov describes it as moving from flamenco to samba to carnival comparsa.

So, um, I'm excited for you to, to see, hear, experience "Pages." And again, commend Jessica's note to you.

Second intermission, then we come back for "Pictures at an Exhibition." Now, this is a work by Alexei Ratmansky.

And as I read my program note, I realize I should have updated it because it starts out, "Alexei Ratmansky is quickly becoming the most prolific and diverse choreographer." Well, he's already there and long past it.

So, um, and he's also since made a work for us, "Wartime Elegy." So, uh, next time, I will update these.

That was in the sort of early aughts.

And, um, we have been dancing his work here, uh, since Peter Boal started acquiring it.

Pictures at an Exhibition was made for New York City Ballet in 2014.

It is set to the famous Mussorgsky score, but not the big orchestrated version, for the original solo piano version.

Would have been a really good idea.

Well, do you remember Tomito's Pictures at an Exhibition?

Yeah, it was a big hit record, that was.

Yeah, that was on Red Seal.