Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition

GENERAL HISTORY OF COMPOSER

Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky was born in 1839 to a family of land-owners. In 1856 he joined the army where he met Alexander Borodin and César Cui, who introduced him to Mily Balakirev, the teacher of Cui and the future, self-appointed head of the Mighty Five. He resigned in 1858 to pursue a musical career, but the emancipation of the serfs in 1861 forced Mussorgsky to join the civil service, while continuing ...
...with the Nationalist Russian School of composers of the "Mighty Five" that included Mily Balakirev following Mihail Glinka, the grandfather of Russian national music, as the "leader" of the group. Others were Cesar Cui, Alexander Borodin and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. During this time Mussorgsky developed his own realistic style, abandoning Western Romanticism and forging a daringly original style, very raw and often dissonant. ... more

GENERAL HISTORY OF COMPOSER

Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky was born in 1839 to a family of land-owners. In 1856 he joined the army where he met Alexander Borodin and César Cui, who introduced him to Mily Balakirev, the teacher of Cui and the future, self-appointed head of the Mighty Five. He resigned in 1858 to pursue a musical career, but the emancipation of the serfs in 1861 forced Mussorgsky to join the civil service, while continuing to composing in his spare time. Mussorgsky was soon linked with the Nationalist Russian School of composers of the "Mighty Five" that included Mily Balakirev following Mihail Glinka, the grandfather of Russian national music, as the "leader" of the group. Others were Cesar Cui, Alexander Borodin and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. During this time Mussorgsky developed his own realistic style, abandoning Western Romanticism and forging a daringly original style, very raw and often dissonant. Also his vocal and operatic works employ a radical declamatory style based on everyday speech patterns.

Mussorgsky was never a truly prolific composer. He wrote three song cycles, a set of musical pictures for piano called Pictures at an Exhibition, two operas, Boris Godunov and the unfinished Khovanshchina, the incomplete play Sorochintsy Fair and the orchestral fantasia St.John's Night on the Bare Mountain for the play The Witch. In 1867 he left the civil service, meaning to earn a living as teacher and accompanist, but took a position in the government's Forestry Department the following year due to financial difficulties. His continuing lapses into alcoholism, drawn from his mixing with wild intellectuals, finally caused his health to deteriorate and forced him to abandon government service in 1880. This finally led to an attack of epilepsy that caused his death in March 1881. His death left much of his work unfinished and the revision and editing of these works were taken up by his colleagues Rimsky-Korsakov and Balakirev, who made Mussorgsky's music more accessible and less original than they were.

THE RECORDING

Naxos has always had a penchant for offering inexpensive recordings of familiar and rare compositions that are often of high quality and that can be highly recommended along with the best full-price recordings. This is well in evidence with this new recording of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, performed by the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine with Theodor Kuchar at the helm. The great difficulty about the Pictures is in the fact that they have been recorded time and time again. Being Mussorgsky's best known work, along with A Night on the Bare Mountain, it makes fresh discoveries somewhat of a difficulty. However, this is not the case here. The orchestra on this recording plays enthusiastically, with a great sense of discovery and freshness. The recorded sound is clean, crisp and detailed, making for a very enjoyable listen.

However, what makes this CD stand out from the rest is the inclusion of the original version of St.John's Night on the Bare Mountain and the more familiar revision done by Rimsky-Korsakov, making for an interesting comparison, never before attempted anywhere else. Kuchar makes their differences plain by his contrasting interpretations, demonstrating that, despite the originality and inspiration of the original, the Rimsky-Korsakov revision is the more coherent and finer in terms of overall structure. To make this CD even more enticing is the inclusion of Golitsïn's Exile from the opera Khovanshchina and the brief Hopak from the play Sorochintsy Fair that was also planned to include material from the Night on the Bare Mountain.

THE WORKS

1. NIGHT ON THE BARE MOUNTAIN (Rimsky-Korsakov revision) (10:54)

This is the more familiar version of the orchestral fantasy, revised by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. The work is full of wild dancing, percussion, brassy exclamations and fanfares, with some very devilish action keeping up the excitement. Rimsky's arrangement is much more refined and tightly knit than the original. He also composed a completely new coda for the work, ending with the approach of dawn with church bells ringing in the distance. The work is capped off with a very beautiful Russian melody for flute, played very beautifully and expressively in this recording. This work is probably most familiar to people from Disney's Fantasia of 1940, where the music was accompanied by such hellish visions that would be inconceivable in any current Disney film of today. This recording is also one of the best I have ever heard, well detailed and recorded with exhilarating tempos and wonderful phrasing.

2. HOPAK from SOROCHINTSY FAIR (1:42)

The delightful Hopak, although brief, is a nice filler on the album. It was apparently intended to be the finale of the first act or the final act of Sorochintsy Fair. The music is joyous, making it a nice ending to the opera.

3. GOLITSÏN'S EXILE from KHOVANSHCHINA (5:10)

This is another rarity on albums like this. Most Mussorgsky discs like to include the atmospheric Prelude, "Dawn over the Moscow River," instead of anything else from the opera Khovanschchina. Golitsïn's Exile begins with dissonant brass declamations that is alternated with a melancholy and mournful string-heavy melody, quite appropriate for the setting.

4. ST.JOHN'S NIGHT ON THE BARE MOUNTAIN (original version) (12:50)

The music of the original version of Night on the Bare Mountain, made in 1867, is more robust, raw and brutal than in the Rimsky's revision. This is plainly apparent from the start of the work with its rolling timpani, cymbals, the more accented use of brass and thicker orchestrations. This in turn gives way to a witches' dance of bucolic energy with their flying brooms bouncing in the air. The music ends in a more bacchanalic fashion, with loud brass blasts. Despite being the original version, it is definitely not better. Although the work begins rather similarly as the Rimsky version, the ensuing music bears little resemblance to that revision. The music lacks the integrity of Rimsky's version, tending to lose interest after a while. What the Rimsky version has in its favour is a more coherent structure, with a powerful first part and a calm and beautiful final part without ever making the music tiresome. The original version on the other hand doesn't really offer anything greatly interesting following the introduction. Still, it makes for an interesting comparison and it is good to note how much Rimsky-Korsakov actually modified the original composition, virtually re-composing the entire piece. An interesting addition to the catalogue, well played and served.

PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION

The Pictures at an Exhibition were originally written for piano in 1874 after the death of the architect Victor Hartmann, a friend of Mussorgsky's. Hartmann's death was followed by an exhibition of about 400 of his drawings, sketches, designs and watercolours that inspired Mussorgsky to create a suite of ten pictures as a memorial to his friend. The individual pieces are linked by a recurring melody that Mussorgsky called a "Promenade." In 1922, in response to a commission from Serge Koussevitsky's "Concerts symphoniques," the composer Maurice Ravel, who greatly admired Mussorgsky, took on the job to orchestrate the Pictures using a very colourful palette of orchestral colour that he uses in a very "contemporary" way, thus creating the most popular arrangement of the work known to us. The first performance took place on October 19, 1922. Incidentally Rimsky-Korsakov also orchestrated a number of pieces in 1891 and they were published by a Parisian publisher. These are however almost completely forgotten by now.

5. Promenade (1:41)
The work begins with the "Promenade" in a very fanfarish way, but with a strongly Russian melody. This is the patron (aka the composer) who moves from picture to picture in the exhibition in a very nonchalant, man-of-the-world kind of way.

6. Gnomus (2:37)
Gnomus is a design for nutcrackers in the shape of a gnome. The music for this picture is very fantasy-like, with striking cymbal clashes, heavy woodwinds and low strings.

7. Promenade (0:59)
The second "Promenade" is announced on tuba, therefore being more quiet and noble. This follows to…

8. Il vecchio castello (The Old Castle) (4:23)
"The Old Castle" is a darkly murky serenade, mostly performed by a saxophone solo, giving the music a very melancholy and ancient sound. You can almost picture the decaying old castle and the lonely serenader wrapped in a shroud of memories of the past. The saxophone solo is particularly well handled in this recording.

9. Promenade (0:34)
The next "Promenade" brings back the more triumphant sound of the first which leads to…

10. Tuileries (0:56)
This piece represents a group of children playing and quarreling, with nurses gossiping in the park. The music is very light and fast in texture, which is then followed by…

11. Bydlo (3:17)
Bydlo is a traditional Polish peasant ox-cart, with slowly turning, creaking wooden wheels. The music is very heavy, depicting the cumbersome transportation very effectively. It gathers in intensity, finally reaching its climax on the violins and snare-drum. The music then subdues back to its original opening grinding as the cart moves forward and out of sight.

12. Promenade (0:42)
The fourth "Promenade" is in the minor key, altering its orchestrations several times. Just before the end we get a glimpse of the next picture by way of chirping flutes.

13. Ballet des petits poussins dans leurs coques
(Ballet of the Unhatched Chickens) (1:12)
That chirping is then continued in a very light manner, showing designs for children's clothes. This is music of great humour and light heartedness and the orchestral playing has much warmness of tone in this recording.

14. Samuel Goldenberg und Schmuyle (2:17)
This picture is actually two pictures of Jews put together. Samuel Goldberg is pompous and arrogant, while Schmuyle is more sneaky and sly. The two Jews then proceed in discussing with each other. In the original piano version this picture was followed by a reprisal of the first "Promenade" but Ravel never included this into his orchestral arrangement.

15. Limoges: le marché (Limoges, the Market) (1:24)
The Limoges Market brings music of hectic action of the market-place with women chatting of trivialities and everybody rushing from place to place in a great hurry.

16. Catacombae: Sepulchrum Romanum (2:04)
The market scene is interrupted by a long, sustained brass note, announcing the descent of Hartmann himself into the catacombs of Paris with a lantern in his hand (here depicted with the most rich underlying sonority). This is the movement that is at the heart of the entire work, a commemoration of the departed friend.

17. Cum mortuis in lingua mortua
(With the dead in the language of the dead) (2:12)
This is the second part of the "Catacombs" movement, presenting the Promenade theme in a minor key. The music depicts how the composer himself accompanies his friend into the realm of the dead as a last friendly gesture.

18. La cabane de Baba-Yaga sur des pattes de poule
(The Hut of Baba Yaga on Chicken's Legs) (3:27)
The next picture doesn't actually depict Baba-Yaga's hut in Hartmann's picture, but a grotesque bronze clock (a sketch for a craftsman to work from). Mussorgsky on the other hand wrote a demonic witch's ride, taking as a model the Russian fairytale of Baba-Yaga, who crunches up children's bones and flies through the night sky in a cottage with chicken's legs. The drums are especially impressive in this version.

19. La grande porte de Kiev (The Great Gate of Kiev) (5:04)
The final picture was originally a sketch Hartmann made for a triumphal arch, which was to be erected in Kiev. Mussorgsky turned this sketch into the crowning, celebratory finale, with an amazing amount of sound produced even in the original piano form. Ravel makes great use of brass, as is expected, making this a very bombastic finale. Before the end, among clanging bells, the Promenade theme comes back one last time, chorale like, to conclude the work in a great feel of exultation. Kuchar here slows down the tempo to bring a truly weighty and powerful feeling of spectacle to the proceedings.

TO SUM UP

So, what can one say about this disc except that it is absolutely superb in every way. It offers great demonstration sound, production values and helpful liner notes. There is the Night on a Bare Mountain in its original and revised forms, a couple of nice fillers and one of the most wonderful performances of the Pictures at an Exhibition. And at the price of 8 € makes for another, extremely recommended budget-price CD from Naxos. That label just doesn't stop amazing. Go get it right away!!!

© berlioz
 

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