A brief introduction to: Modest Mussorgskij - Pictures At An Exhibition

One of the finest and at the same time most challenging works for Piano solo of the 19th century is for sure Modest Mussorgskij's work "Pictures At An Exhibition" of 1874.

Modest Mussorgskij

Russian composer Mussorgskij (1839-1881) created this Piano-Suite in the memory of his friend, the architect Viktor Hartmann (1834-1873), whom he first met in St. Petersburg. Hartmann was not only a good architect -among other things, he created the monument for the thousandth anniversary of Russia in Nowgorod- he was also a talented illustrator of books, a designer and a painter of watercolors.

Viktor Hartmann

When Hartmann died in 1873 some of his friends organized a commemorative exhibition with approx. 400 exhibits of his works. Mussorgskij was so impressed by this exhibition, that he decided to create also a musical monument for his friend in addition to the mentioned exhibition. So he composed a Suite for Piano Solo, in which he transformed ten of Hartmann's works into his very own musical language.

The whole work is very similar to a real visit of an exhibition. The visitor steps into the room and at the same time he is caught by the magic atmosphere of the exhibition, which is represented by the motif of the "Promenade". It is believed, that Mussorgskij, a very corpulent person, was imitating his own clumsy walk in the rhythmical change of the 5/4- and 6/4-time. But nevertheless this introducing version of the "Promenade" sounds also very majestic in the flow of the melody.

In a way, the Promenade builds the link between the different pictures, but its character changes, depending on the impression, the viewer gets from a certain picture. After the visitor has stepped in, he immediately sees from the distance the grotesque picture of the "Gnome" (in the original picture, which unfortunately is lost, it was some kind of a nutcracker). For that reason the music continues without a pause, immediately after the "Promenade" has ended. With wild and abrupt stopping rhythmical 1/8-Figures Mussorgskij describes, how the Gnomus is bopping around, falling down and getting up at once.

At the end he is just running away, which is also described in the last very fast sequence of 1/8-notes.

Audio MIDI: Promenade - Gnomus

The second version of the "Promenade" heralds the next picture. This time, however, the character has changed from a clumsy "forte" to a very silent and lyrical way and refers just to the next picture. "The Old Castle" is the second picture of the work. A troubadour in front of the window of an old castle is singing a moving tune for his beloved maid. In the first bars the listener can imagine how the young fellow is playing his lute, before,in the melody, he begins singing his ode.

But unfortunately Mussorgskij does not allow us listeners to find out, if the Troubadour succeeded in the end...

Audio MIDI: Promenade - The Old Castle

After this more quiet and peaceful scenery, the visitor continues his walk around the exhibition, once again characterized by the "Promenade", but which is now sounding much more vivid than before. "Tuileries" describes the goings around the Tuileries in Paris. Children are playing, running around, hunting themselves and are laughing and screaming, while their governesses try to repress them.

Audio MIDI: Promenade - Tuileries

The following picture comes along without an introducing version of the Promenade, which may come from the fact, that it is located just besides the previous, so that the viewer has only to move his head to have a look on it. "Bydło" describes with its clumsy and monotonous bass-figure the oxcart of a polish farmer, which first is approaching the viewer, then is passing him by with a lot of noise and finally vanishes in the distance.

The expressive dynamic composition of the crescendo-decrescendo-effect very vividly gives us the illusion of this oxcart, moving from one side to the other.

Audio MIDI: Bydło

Again the visitor moves on to the next picture, the "Promenade" is now sounding very thoughtfully. But this time, before it is really coming to its end, it is suddenly interrupted by the beginning motif of the next picture. The viewer seems to be teared out of his thoughts, while he is approaching the next picture.

"The Ballet Of the Unhatched Chicks" surely is the funniest picture of all. The stimulus to this picture Mussorgskij got by Hartmann's sketches for the ballet Trilbi of the composer Julius Gerber and the choreographer Marius Petipa.

Sketch for the ballet "Trilbi"

Happily cheeping, the chicks are scampering around. Their cheeping is descriptively set into music by using a lot of grace notes.

Audio MIDI: Promenade - The Ballet Of the Unhatched Chicks

The following picture once again seems to be located just besides the previous, because again Mussorgskij did it without a linking Promenade. "Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle" describes the quarrel between two old jews.

Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle

The first is angrily mumbling (which can be heard in the bass-line), while the other is making fun of him (which is described in the upper voice).

...

The whole scenery ends with a final punch line, it seems, that they have split forever.

Audio MIDI: Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle

The following "Promenade" is very similar to the very first one, but now it seems to be much fresher and lively. This Promenade directly leads us to the "Marketplace in Limoges". In this picture Mussorgskij shows us quite plainly the jumble on a french marketplace: Chandlers, who are offering their products, women, who are bargaining for the cheapest prices, children playing around, barking dogs and ballad-mongers...

The wild scenery abruptly leads into the sacral silence of the "Catacombs ". Like a director in a movie is cutting a film sequence, Mussorgskij abruptly changes the setting and the listener finds himself in the underworld of Paris.

In the Catacombs of Paris

The solemn sustaining chords depict the murky, mysterious atmosphere and the reverb in the widely ramified sanitation under the capital of France.

Mussorgskij's handwritten annotation in the score (in obviously incorrect Latin) "Con (sic) mortuis in lingua mortua" ("With the dead in the language of the dead"), gives us a hint, that he took this piece, as a kind of dialogue with his dead friend Victor Hartmann.

Even here we can notice the motif of the Promenade, but now it is transfigured into a chant like in a Requiem. Very quietly the last notes fade out - a last reminiscence to the old friend.

Audio MIDI: Promenade - The Marketplace in Limoges - Catacombs

The next picture "The Hut Of Baba Yaga" describes the grotesque ride of a witch on a hut on Hen’s Legs.

The master for this piece was probably the sketch of a long case clock by Hartmann.

Sketch of the Hut on Hen's Legs

The infernal character of this piece is diametrically opposed to the final piece "The Great Gate of Kiev", in which it leads without a pause.

The Great Gate Of Kiev

"The Great Gate Of Kiev" basically is also a Promenade, but now arranged as a grave final hymn. The insertion of peal of bells and inklings of church chorals stresses the solemn character of this great final.

The listener quasi leaves the exhibition through the gate and steps into the out-of-doors of real life.

Audio MIDI: The Hut of Baba Yaga - The Great Gate Of Kiev

With this Piano-Suite, Mussorgskij managed to create an uncomparable masterpiece in the European Music of the 19th century. So it is hardly to believe, that this piece was not noticed by anybody after it was first partially published in 1874. The first published version of the complete work came out not until some years after Mussorgskij's death (1886).

Title page of the first complete edition

And not until the twenties of the 20th century, it was Maurice Ravel's orchestrated version, which brought this piece an enormous success. Other adaptations and orchestrations were created by Walter Goehr (1942) and Vladimir Ashkenazy (1982). Even a version for rock-band was created by Emerson Lake & Palmer in the year of 1971 and the very contemporary adaptions show, how popular this work still is today.

Even if in the concert-halls of today, Ravel's (brilliant) orchestration is almost more popular, than the Original, one shouldn't forget about the original Piano-Version. It is the intrinsically masterwork. The adaptions could serve as an implement for a first approach to Mussorgskij's original work . However, it will ever be Mussorgskij's achievement, having created an immensely vivid and pictorial presentation of extra-musical things, with the restricted means of the Solo-Piano, as nobody before managed to do in this striking manner. This work is one of the best examples for the so called genre of "programme music", which had its first period of prosperity in the 19th century.

Pictures At An Exhibition - a real masterwork in Music History!

Note: The MIDI files were created by Robert Finley