Mussorgsky (1874) Pictures at an Exhibition

Mussorgsky (1874) Pictures at an Exhibition 
WDR Symphony Orchestra / Stanislav Kochanovsky conductor
2024-06-28 Kölner Philharmonie

Modest Mussorgsky (arr. Maurice Ravel, 1922)

Text: Otto Hagedorn

Respighi's teacher Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov was for many years a member of the group of Russian composers that became known as ‘The Mighty Bunch’. One of his comrades-in-arms was Modest Mussorgsky. Through his ‘Pictures at an Exhibition’, he is the best known of this group today. The story has often been told: The declared aim of the ‘The Mighty Bunch’ was an art music that was to be developed from Russian folk music. Particularly in their initial phase, the Five rejected compositional techniques that conformed too closely to the rules, as they felt this restricted their imagination. Modest Mussorgsky was particularly strict: throughout his life, he refused to learn the ‘professional’ art of musical composition. This had both advantages and disadvantages. It is unlikely that a classically trained composer would have been able to devise such a vivid piano cycle as ‘Pictures at an Exhibition’ with its naturalistic miniatures. However, Mussorgsky reached his limits with larger forms and the orchestration of his works.

It is no coincidence that Rimsky-Korsakov, Igor Stravinsky and later Dmitri Shostakovich retouched his orchestrations.

Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) was by far the most masterful orchestrator of Mussorgsky's music. His version of ‘Pictures at an Exhibition’ is even considered one of the most successful orchestral scores in the history of music. It has almost been forgotten that Rimsky-Korsakov had already orchestrated two movements of the piano cycle and that his pupil Mikhail Tushalov had orchestrated seven of the ten pictures. Ravel received the commission for his version for his version in 1922 from the Russian conductor Sergei Koussevitzky for his newly founded Paris concert series. And Ravel, whom Stravinsky once described as the ‘Swiss watchmaker’ among composers, took on the task with his characteristic precision and immense creativity. To this day, his version of ‘Pictures at an Exhibition’ is one of the most popular pieces in the concert repertoire.