Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition; Night on Bald Mountain  (Audio CD) 
by Modest Mussorgsky

Throughout the work are "Promenades", which is literally the walking from one piece of art to the next. The other movements are Mussorgksy's interpretations of Hartmann's art.

The music ranges from dark and dreading, as in "The Gnome", to light and playful in "Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks", to the near martial music of "The Great Gate of Kiev", which immediately reminded me of Tchaikovsky's "1812 Overture", which was written about seven years later. Each of these works is a vignette of Russian life that runs the gamut from the mundane to the magnificent.

The orchestral arrangements are full, making use of all instruments from piccolos to timpani and bass, allowing each section of the orchestra to be heard at particular moments, versus the favoritism of some composers. Maurice Ravel orchestrated this piece, and was able to musically insinuate the details and fullness of life in Russia. The music is heavily flavored by its Russian origin, yet is well within the pantheon of western classical.

The detail of each piece is significant, and the space available for this review is insufficient for that incredible detail. As a single example, "The Market Place at Limoges" is busy and full of activity. Women are talking and quarreling, people are buying, walking, haggling; the activity is hectic and chaotic. The music well details all this in a mere minute and twenty-nine seconds, yet you feel the individual and mass actions and the frenetic pace. Gorgeously created and executed.

However, this CD does not stop with the magnificent "Pictures at an Exhibition". This CD also contains "Night on Bald Mountain". You may remember this work as a significant part of the movie "Fantasia" by Disney. The animation was dark and serious and just as explosive as the music. If you remember the music being ominous and dark, then your memory is accurate. Once again, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov orchestrated the music to make full use of all the instruments, and you clearly hear contributions from the smallest brass instruments to the bass and timpani.

This CD also contains excerpts from Khovanshchina, an opera unfinished at Mussorgsky's death. The opera itself has been described as being inaccessible because it relies on Russian history of the fifteenth century. As with much classical music, and some progressive rock, you have to study the music at length to attempt to gain an understanding of it. Fortunately these excerpts are brief and have no vocal backing, so they may be enjoyed without requiring much effort at interpretation.

My favorite Russian composer has always been Tchaikovsky. Mussorgsky in many ways exceeds Tchaikovsky in the depth and detail of his musical vision. Listening to this recording of Mussorgsky has opened my eyes to a new depth of Russian classical music that I previously did not know existed. I highly recommend this recording as a good introduction to Mussorgsky, but be sure you move on and acquire more of his work, it's sure to be good.

5 of 6 found the following review helpful:

The depth of friendship and the meaning of life.  Jul 08, 2000
Initially I was attracted to Mussorgsky because a couple of the musical vignettes that comprise "Pictures at an Exhibition" were used as character or event themes in the cartoon series "The Smurfs", to wit, "The Gnome" and "Tuileries". Eventually going beyond the mere entertainment value of these, I read the history of "Pictures" provided in the accompanying booklet.

Learning that the piece was composed by Mussorgsky as a tribute to his late friend Victor Hartmann, I listened to the recording all the way through, from a new perspective - How does the music convey Mussorgsky's feelings for his departed friend? The pace of this recording is slow - not lethargic, but pensive. Each vignette tells the musical story of Mussorgsky's reflections on the artwork of Hartmann, but more than that, the music is linked to the remembrance of his friend in each painting at the exhibition.

Each "Promenade" section becomes increasingly quieter and more reflective, as the impact of Mussorgsky's loss becomes more apparent to him, and by extension, to the listener. For instance, the "Tuileries" is not simply a giddy piece about children, but about human youth and innocence. "The Marketplace at Limoges" speaks to the joys and fears of adulthood and maturity, leading into the somber and emotionally gripping vignettes that end the piece. Musing on the "Catacombs" and "With the Dead" the listener feels loss and anguish, but there remains at this point a sense of wonder at the friendship that inspired this work.

"The Hut on Fowl's Legs" expresses frustration, even repressed anger with its mystical, unfathomable subject matter - Trumpets blare and horns wail and the surrounding violins ascending and descending scales sound like uncontrollable tears of joy and pain until they stop abruptly for the finale. "The Great Gate at Kiev" is the finale, in which the listener feels in the culmination of all the vignettes, the depth and pride of Mussorgsky's work. The grandeur of Ravel's orchestral rendering comes to complete fruition in this last vignette, where a solitary bell echoes out over the entire orchestra announcing to all the world the total worth of a friendship, and the importance of one man's life to another. To express this in words may be impossible, but Mussorgsky manages to achieve it musically, to spectacular and mind-shattering effect.

The Georgian Festival Orchestra under Mardjani does amazing and beautiful work on this Sony Classics recording from 1994. "Night on Bald Mountain" and excerpts from "Khovanshchina" are also included on this disc, and are both well done themselves, but the "Pictures" suite is worth the price of the disc itself. This music has the power to restore faith in the goodness of humanity. Listen to it and experience it for yourself to-day.