Pictures at an Exhibition

1. Pictures at an Exhibition Modest Mussorgsky 1874

2. Modest Mussorgsky (1839-1881) Modest Mussorgsky was a Russian composer; a member of a group of composers trying to develop a distinctive Russian nationalistic style. These composers, called the "Russian Five" or the "Mighty Handful," used Russian elements in their compositions. The other members of this group were Balakirev, Borodin, Cui, and Rimski-Korsakov. Mussorgsky had very little formal training in music and completed very few composition in his short life. He worked in a government job but had difficulties because a his alcoholism. He was fortunate to have a supervisor that encouraged and somewhat protected him in his job. The supervisor ignored the frequent absences and even gave him time off to tour. The pictures on this page show him at age 33, the time he completed the work we will study, and the month before his death. He is best known for his symphonic poem, Night on Bald Mountain. the opera Boris Gudunov, and the piano work Pictures at an Exhibition.

3. Mussorgsky's close friend, artist and architect Victor Hartmann, died in 1873 at the age of 39. Shortly after the artist's death, Mussorgsky attended a memorial exhibition in Moscow of Hartmann's sketches and paintings. In 1874, Mussorgsky completed Pictures at an Exhibition. This work, for solo piano, is a programmatic impression of a viewer strolling through the exhibit, viewing the paintings. We hear 11 miniature tone poems (10 pieces plus the opening promenade) depicting the paintings and four "promenades." This work did not achieve great success until it was orchestrated in 1922 by Maurice Ravel and it has remained a standard in the orchestral repertoire. Ravel’s orchestration is for a large Romantic orchestra. It follows the piano original quite closely. The piece in its original piano version is considered one of the most difficult in the piano literature. Victor Hartmann Maurice Ravel

4. “Promenade” The opening “Promenade” suggest the casual strolling of a gallery visitor. This theme is heard four times in the course of this composition.

5. “Gnomus” The Hartmann drawing vanished long ago but the Michael Mayer work, taken from his collection of modern works based on the Hartmann collection is seen here. The Hartmann drawing portrays a hideous dwarf, limping grotesquely.

6. Il Vecchio Castello“The Old Castle” • Following the second promenade, we hear Il Vecchio Castello (The Old Castle). This movement describes a painting of an ancient stone castle before which a troubadour sings a soulful serenade.

7. “Tuileries” Hartmann's drawing (not available) is of children playing in a Paris park, supervised by nursemaids. The third promenade precedes this movement.

8. “Bydlo” Bydlo is a Polish word for "cattle." Hartmann's drawing (not available) was of cattle in a rural Polish village; Mussorgsky created a different picture, in which an oxcart passes by on enormous wooden wheels.

9. “Ballet of the Baby Chick in Shells” • Hartmann drew 17 costume and set designs for the ballet Trilby, four of which are extant. This is the sketch that inspired Mussorgsky's Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks. • The ballet featured children from the Russian Imperial Ballet School dressed variously as birds, butterflies and, as in this sketch, chicks still in their eggs. • This movement follows the fourth promenade.

10. “Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle”The drawings showed "a rich Jew wearing a fur hat: Sandomir" and "a poor Sandomir Jew". This was the one movement in the suite that the composer did not title, and for a time it was known merely as "two Polish Jews".This music is based on two paintings of two very different men. The first section depicts Samuel Goldenberg, a rich, pompous Jew. The second section describes Schmuyle, a less fortunate beggar. The third sections combines the two themes to describe Schmuyle begging for a handout and Goldenberg finally refusing.

11. Limoges“The Market Place” • On the score of Limoges, the Marketplace, Mussorgsky wrote some lines which he later crossed out. They're still readable, and too much fun not to share: "Big news! M. de Puissangeout has just recovered his cow 'Fugitive.' But the good ladies of Limoges are not agreed about this, because Mme. de Remboursac has got wonderful porcelain dentures while M. de Panta-Pantaléon is still inconvenienced by his nose which is as red as a peony." • The painting that inspired Limoges is of gossiping women in a busy French outdoor marketplace.

12. “Catacombs” Hartmann had graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts with honors, and was thus allowed four years abroad at government expense as a sort of post-graduate education. Hartmann spent three of those years in France, and here made the drawings and paintings that were to become the inspiration for three of Mussorgsky's musical sketches: Tuileries, Limoges, and The Catacombs, represented here. This is a self portrait of the author in the Roman catacombs beneath the streets of Paris. The exhibition catalogue reads: "Interior of Paris catacombs with figures of Hartmann, the architect Kenel, and the guide holding a lamp".

13. “The Hut on Fowls’ Legs” The legend of the witch Baba Yaga is familiar to all Russian children. Hartmann's sketch is of Baba Yaga's hut, a hideous shack built on giant chicken legs. The image on the left is Hartmann's design for an elaborate bronze clock in the form of The Hut on Fowl's Legs, the abode of the witch Baba Yaga. Clocks with cases in elaborate designs depicting things or places were quite common in the 19th century. The image on the right is Alexander Alexeief's drawing of Baba Yaga's hut, which is much more dynamic and less ornate than Hartmann's

14. “The Great Gate of Kiev” On April 4, 1866 the Tsar Alexander II narrowly escaped an assassination attempt in the city of Kiev. A competition was ordained for the design of a great gate to commemorate what was referred to as "the event of April 4, 1866" - the Imperial Censor forbidding language any more particular than this. While the Tsar was happy to have escaped with his life, he apparently was a bit uneasy at any explicit public acknowledgments of the fact. Perhaps it was this ambivalence that led to the eventual cancellation of the project; or it may have been a simple paucity of funds. Victor Hartmann's design for The Great Gate of Kiev caused a sensation, and the architect himself felt it was the finest work he had yet done. The cancellation of the project must have come as a blow.