When Modest Mussorgsky wrote “Pictures at an Exhibition” in honor of his artist friend Viktor Hartmann, he wrote the suite for piano.
Then, the French composer Maurice Ravel arranged those same movements for orchestra, creating a wildly popular orchestra piece that is still programmed and performed regularly today.
If you haven't heard the first part of this series, our episode on the orchestral suite "Pictures at an Exhibition" part 1: Let's Go To A Museum is available here!
But how do you take one instrument — the piano, and make it work for a whole orchestra with all of those instruments??
Let's listen to some of these movements to see if we can figure how he did it! We’ve also got some other (sometimes silly) arrangements, not just an orchestra to listen to.
PROMENADE I
The first Promenade features a stately melody, fit for promenading along, perhaps a grand entrance…. almost like a fanfare!
When Maurice Ravel arranged this Promenade for orchestra, he used a trumpet to start this fanfare of the piece in a stately way!
There's also a version from the 1970s by the Japanese composer known as Tomita who made electronic music using analog synthesizers!
THE OLD CASTLE
In the movement entitled "The Old Castle" or "Il vecchio castello", there is a low background part that serves as a foundation for the melody when it arrives. It rumbles on as the somewhat sweet, somewhat haunting melody plays over the top.
When you take those two parts — the low lying foundation, and the melody, and arrange it for an orchestra, you get to decide which instruments play them!
Ravel chose upright bass, and some bassoon laying that low foundation. And for the melody, he chose the alto saxophone!
Here's an arrangement of "The Old Castle" played only by saxophones!
THE HUT OF BABA YAGA
"The Hut of Baba Yaga" starts off chaotically and aggressively!
If you were to pick some aggressive instruments in the orchestra to play this theme, what would you pick? Maybe not a flute or a gentle violin… Instead, maybe timpani! And cellos! And basses! And lots of brass!
But, you can make strings sound scary too! Here’s an arrangement for a string quartet and piano — what are they doing to make their instruments sound like an evil creature is chasing you?
And finally —
THE GREAT GATE AT KIEV
This final movement of the suite is grand and glorious, but somehow on piano, it just doesn’t feel like as big of a great gate as it should be.
Good thing Ravel orchestrated this movement with brass, cymbals and sweeping strings!
But what if you were a prog rock band from the 1970s like 'Emerson, Lake and Palmer'? You'd use electric guitars and MOOG synthesizers, keyboards, and drum kits!
They have a whole album of their arrangements of "Pictures at An Exhibition"!
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Classical Sprouts is written and produced by Emily Duncan Wilson.
