[1/22/2011] Preview: Preparing for our first encounter with Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" (continued)

The first edition of Pictures at an Exhibition

The basic game plan of the Pictures suite is that variants of the opening "Promenade" recur as links between some of the pictures on exhibition, by Mussorgsky's sadly deceased friend the artist and architect Viktor Hartmann. We'll talk about all that tomorrow. For tonight, let's just hear that opening "Promenade" and the fourth and fifth pictures, "Bydło (Oxen)" (which depicts a lumbering oxcart) and the "Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks," in the composer's piano original and Ravel's orchestration. I chose these particular pictures because, first, they occur consecutively and, second, they embody about as different kinds of movement as you could imagine. (Hmm, movement in the depiction of "pictures"? Yes indeed. We'll be talking about this tomorrow.)

We should note that the piano recording of Pictures by William Kapell is a miraculously preserved private recording of the broadcast of a 1953 recital in Australia, where the pianist spent what turned out to be the last several months of his life, before being killed (not much past his 31st birthday) when his return flight crashed attempting to land in San Francisco on October 29, so we need to make allowances for the recorded sound. I don't think any allowances need be made for the sound of the Szell-Cleveland recording of Mussorgsky-Ravel, which seems to me one of Szell's (and the Epic recording team's) great recordings.

piano version: William Kapell, piano. RCA/BMG, private recording of a live broadcast from Melbourne (Australia) Town Hall, July 21, 1953

Ravel orchestration: Cleveland Orchestra, George Szell, cond. Epic/Columbia/CBS/Sony, recorded Oct. 30, 1963

Opening Promenade
piano version -- William Kapell, piano

Ravel orchestration -- George Szell, cond.


No. 4, Bydło (Oxen)
piano version -- William Kapell, piano

Ravel orchestration -- George Szell, cond.


No. 5, Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks
piano version -- William Kapell, piano

Ravel orchestration -- George Szell, cond.



IN TOMORROW'S SUNDAY CLASSICS POST

In case you haven't gotten the message yet, we poke around the first half of Pictures at an Exhibition in the piano original and the orchestral versions of Ravel and Stokowski.


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