Composer: Modest Mussorgsky, Pyotr Il’yich Tchaikovsky
Performer: Alexander Warenberg
Orchestra: Gewandhausorchester Leipzig
Conductor: Igor Markevitch
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Brilliant Classics
Catalogue: 94931
Release: 2014
Size: 369 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: cover
Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition
01. Promenade 1
02. I. The Gnome
03. Promenade 2
04. II. The Old Castle
05. Promenade 3
06. III. Tuileries
07. IV. Bydlo
08. Promenade 4
09. V. Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks
10. VI. Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle
11. VII. The Market Place at Limoges
12. VIII. Catacombae: Sepulchrum romanum
13. IX. The Hut on Fowl’s Legs (Baba-Yaga)
14. X. The Great Gate of Kiev
15. Mussorgsky: A Night on the Bare Mountain
Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition
16. Promenade 1 – I. Gnomus
17. Promenade 2 – II. Old Castle
18. Promenade 3 – III. Tuileries
19. IV. Bydlo
20. Promenade 4 – V. Ballet of the Unhatched Chicken
21. VI. Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle
22. Promenade 5 – VII. Limoges, The Market
23 .VIII. Catacombae (Sepulcrum romanum) – Con mortuis in lingua mortua
24. IX. The Hut on Fowl’s Legs (Baba-Yaga)
25. X. The Great Gate at Kiev
Tchaikovsky: The Seasons, Op. 37b
26. I. January: By the Fireside
27. II. February: Carnival
28. III. March: Song of the Lark
29. IV. April: Snowdrop
30. V. May: May Nights
31. VI. June: Barcarolle
32. VII. July: Song of the Reaper
33. VIII. August: The Harvest
34. IX. September: The Hunt
35. X. October: Autumn Song
36. XI. November: Troika
37. XII. December: Christmas
Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition” is one of the most famous and most frequently performed romantic piano cycles of the entire repertoire. It contains colourful, highly original and gripping musical depictions of a series of painting by Mussorgsky’s friend Hartmann: the menacing and evil Gnomus, the mysterious Old Castle, the frolicsome chicks just out of the egg, quarrelling children, the busy marketplace full of chattering women, and then moving into more sinister regions of the Catacomb (“with the Dead in the language of the Dead”), the brutal force and terror of the witch Baba Yaga, culminating in the glorious Great Gate of Kiev. This work is so rich and “picturesque” , that it is hard to resist to make an orchestral arrangement of it, and several composers wrote their own orchestration, the most famous that by Maurice Ravel (a master orchestrator). Nevertheless the piano score leaves ample opportunity to trigger the creativity of the pianist, and the interpretation by Russian pianist Alexander Warenberg is one of great imagination and authority.
This release offers both the original piano version and the Ravel orchestration, filled up with the orchestral “A Night on Bare Mountain” and the more modest, but no less impressive piano cycle by Tchaikovsky: The Seasons.