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M.Mussorgsky
Pictures at an Exhibition
Orchestration by M.Ravel
If there is one thing that people of all eras, origins, nationalities, times share is the desire to
remember those who left a mark in our lives. Friends, family, mentors. This can translate into a
beautifully simple gesture, like planting a tree with the name of the beloved one. Or in a more
articulated one, like a work of art.

The painter Victor Hartmann was a close friend of Modest Mussorgsky and when he died,
unexpectedly, of an aneurism in 1873 aged only 39, Mussorgsky was devastated. A couple of
weeks after his passing, Hartmann's friends and supporters organized an exhibition of his
paintings at the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg.
And about a year later, Mussorgsky channeled his pain into a new piano work, making his
memories of his close friend immortal.
Most of the works that inspired the Pictures at an Exhibition have been lost in time, but thanks to
Mussorgsky’s music they are still remembered today.

After Mussorgsky's death, in 1881, this work fell into oblivion. Until 1922, when the great
conductor Serge Koussevitzky commissioned Maurice Ravel to orchestrate it.

Promenade
Mussorgsky imagined himself walking through the paintings, capturing the spirit of each of
them. He depicted himself walking with a "Promenade in modo russico": Promenade is French
for "walk" while "in modo russico" is Italian for "in the Russian style".
This promenade opens the piece and returns throughout the whole work, connecting one painting
to another.

A solo trumpet plays the first 2 bars. The same 2 bars are repeated, harmonized, by the brass
section. Notice how Mussorgsky begins this melody on the 6th degree of the scale of Bb major -
the home key - harmonized on a simple triad. This G minor chord resolving on the dominant
gives it a sense of wonder, helping to create the idea of someone walking through the rooms. To
add to the somewhat randomness of the walk, the meter changes from one bar to another, moving
between 5/4 and 6/4.
And notice how the last chord of the 3rd bar changes from D minor to Bb major on the 2nd beat
of bar 4, opening up the phrase.
The 4 bars that follow condense the dialogue between the trumpet and the brass section, with the
latter intervening halfway through the second and fourth bar. The second half of this dialogue
carries out a modulation to Ab major

The conversation moves to the string, driving away from the key of Ab with that Gb in the bass
line leading to a Db major. Notice also the absence of the third in the chord, adding more

instability to the chord

The woodwinds join in, followed by horns and trumpets, and the dialogue extends to the
woodwinds and the string…
…to reach the full orchestra in forte to close the promenade. The orchestration, with those 3
trumpets in closed chords doubled by the violins divisi in octaves, is rich and perfectly captures
the full Russian sound of Mussorgsky.

Gnomus
The original sketch was lost but critic Vladimir Stasov described it as "A sketch depicting a little
gnome, clumsily running with crooked legs".
The sound is ominous, with the dark colors of the violas, cellos, and basses combined with the
clarinets and bassoons. The gnome moves fast and stops suddenly on the notes held by the horns
and trumpets. Notice the register: again, low, dark, unsettling with those muted trumpets.

The gesture perfectly depicts the erratic movements of the creature, with a lot of stops and go.
This cell is repeated several times, with small variations, ending on a fortissimo followed by a
gran pausa. The stop-and-go movements of the gnome continue.

Notice the orchestration: strings (except violas) in pizzicato, with the double basses in octaves;
xylophone and timpani; tuba with mute; contrabassoon; 3 flutes and 3 oboes.

The mid register is completely missing from the spectrum, enhancing the ominousness of the
sound anticipated in the first few bars.
Another gran pausa and the action is repeated. The orchestration changes to a somewhat lighter
one. The darkness is still present in the clarinet, cellos, and double basses parts. The harp and
celesta add a sinister twinkle, accompanied by the glissandos of the violas and the cellos.

The opening material returns briefly, bridging to a new episode. As per tempo marking, Poco
meno mosso e pesante - slightly slower and heavy.

The strings are absent, the heaviness is enhanced by the timpani and the bass drum. You can
almost see the gnome heavily moving one leg after the other.

This sort of march is interrupted abruptly by the initial cell…

…only to restart shortly after. The episode is expanded, incorporated into a descending chromatic
scale

A variation of the second episode follows, enriched by the trills and chromatic scales of bass
clarinet, and bassoon, doubled by the cellos and basses.
And the piece ends with the gnome frantically running away. Or towards us, perhaps.

A placid retake of the promenade walks us gently to the next painting.

Il vecchio castello
The original title is in Italian. According to Statov, this is the depiction of an old Italian castle in
front of which a troubadour sings a song.
The key is a somber G# minor, though that is not revealed right away as both cellos and bassoons
start with open fifths

Ravel gives the melody to an alto saxophone in Eb. The atmosphere is melancholic, foggy,
coming from far away in the past. This is ironic considering the instrument was invented in the
1840s.

Violas and cellos keep a very simple accompaniment: the cellos palpitate on a G# pedal, while
the viola move simply from the 5th to the 6th note of the scale

The phrase is framed by the bassoons retaking the end of their introduction with the addition of
an English horn.

The saxophone offers us itslonely melody, expanding on it, and leaving room for the strings to
introduce a new phrase, based on the same basic material.

The pulsing rhythm is taken up by the basses, and subsequently by the cellos accompanying the
brief woodwinds answer
The bassoons return once more with the closing part of the opening phrase, while the English
horn's line is replaced by the violas.

The melody is then entrusted to the couple Flute-English horn. Notice how the flute is playing in
its low register, darkening the color of the English horn with no risk of overpowering it.
A cell from this phrase is used to build a crescendo…

…that rapidly folds back. The same episode is presented again, this time by the flute (again in its
low register) and the clarinet.

The line rests on the pulsing G# in the bassoons, while the strings offer glimpses of what we've
just heard.
After the saxophone plays the main theme once more, the music fades away, until a final
surprise: on a pianissimo dynamic of one single G#, in the bass clarinet, the saxophone glisses up
underlined by a pizzicato in forte of the strings, only to die away into oblivion right after.

The promenade returns, this time in a more extroverted fashion, walking us to the next painting.

Tuileries
From Italy, we move to France, specifically to Paris, near the Louvre. There, in the garden of the
Tuileries, a swarm of children and nurses are playing and quarreling. At least this is the
description we get once more from Vladimir Stasov, as Hartmann's original painting was lost.

We enter a lighthearted atmosphere: the woodwinds alone, playing in a mid to high register, open
the piece. The movement, in B major, is built on an ABA structure.

Notice the adjective in the tempo marking: capriccioso, meaning capricious.

The whole movement is rather short and quite delicate. The same material is reworked creating a
crescendo that gradually introduces strings in pizzicato, harps, and horns.
…and returns on its own steps, closing the A part. While we can see the kids running around and
playing in this first section, the second section depicts mostly the nurses chatting with each other.

The violins languidly whisper something, and flute, clarinet, and harp quickly respond with a
chatter
The strings retake the lead…

…and the woodwinds overlap with their chatter, leading back to a shortened variation of the A
section serving also as the coda of the movement.
Notice the cleverness in the usage of the musical material: the 16th notes are first used as the
chattery answer in the form of a short descending arpeggio (2nd measure of nr.35); then they
intersect elements of the main theme at nr.36 making the connection even more evident 2
measures after 36 (look at the oboes and bassoons)

It seems like we're going back to the A section but, in fact, the 2 images overlap, employing
elements from both sections. This is particularly evident at nr. 37
And shortly after, the movement delicately ends on a pianissimo dynamic.

We would now expect the promenade again, but…surprise: we're thrown right into the next
painting. Maybe the 2 were next to one another in the exhibition…

Sandomirzsko bydło (Cattle)

According to Statov, this is the depiction of "A Polish cart on enormous wheels, drawn by oxen."
The title suggests that the scene takes place in the area of Sandomierski, a popular wine region in
the southeast of Poland.

The original piano version begins in fortissimo, placing the observer/listener in front of it. After
the climax, the dynamic is immediately cut down to piano and proceeds with a diminuendo,
suggesting the cart moving away.

In the Rimsky-Korsakov edition - on which Ravel's orchestration is based - the initial dynamic is
piano, gradually builds to the climax and retracts, suggesting that the observer/listener is
watching it from the side as if standing at the edge of the road.
The structure is ABA with a coda, and the key, once again, G# minor.
The orchestration suggests not so much darkness but extreme weight: the wheels turn slowly in
the alternating thirds of the cellos and basses with mute, doubled by the contrabassoon and by
the first bassoon, while the second holds a pedal on the dominant.

A few bars later the harp plucks 4 notes in pianissimo in its lowest register, quietly underlining
the change of harmony.

The theme is entrusted to the instrument that can best portray heaviness: a solo tuba.
The phrase is repeated, with a difference. The brief change of harmony is extended with a triad
built on the lowered dominant. Following the previous chord, built on a lowered second degree
of the G# minor scale, enhances the flavor of something old, coming from far away, and, at
times, creaking.

The harmonic mutation is now expanded and provides the excuse for a big crescendo. The
dynamic is still pianissimo but the orchestration is thickened by the addition of the harp, the
second violins, the oboes, the clarinets, the bass clarinet, and the bass drum.

Notice the half-scale in the bass line, starting on the A natural and ending on the D natural.
And notice how the thickness of sound is achieved also by the second violins playing divisi in 4.

Four bars later the flutes, the third oboe, and the first violins add another layer
The harmony is still the same but the voicing and the parts moving in contrary motion add an
enormous tension. Starting at rehearsal number 41 Mussorgsky moves back towards G# minor. A
small diminuendo creates just enough room for the crescendo leading to the triple forte

The theme returns in octaves throughout the orchestra. Notice the addition of the snare drum:
with a simple crescendo over 4 bars a great deal of tension can be added to the scene, without
distorting the sound of the rest of the orchestra.

This is unwritten in the score but it feels very natural and enhances the most intense bars right
before the music fades away, creating a climax within a climax.
Slowly but surely, a diminuendo starts taking the carriage away. Instruments are left behind, and
the tuba solo returns

An echo of the theme is passed to a solo horn, with mute, in the low register of the instrument.

There is no marked rallentando but the music slows down in the last bars when the 8th notes turn
into quarter notes. And the carriage simply vanishes in the distance on the pizzicato of the double
basses.
The promenade that follows takes on a different perspective, keeping some of the distant sound
in the orchestration, starting only with flutes in the high register and 2 clarinets. Oboes and
bassoons answer a couple of bars later.

The music is pulled towards the low register, becoming ominous. It rises up from the double
basses to the first violins crying out in their high register in a sinister D minor. Suddenly, the
atmosphere is interrupted by an anticipation of the next picture.

The Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks

A very fast-paced movement, this 5th painting was created by Hartman for the ballet Trilby,
produced at the Bolshoi Theatre in 1871. In contrast with the previous movement, Mussorgsky
paints a lighthearted Scherzino, a small scherzo in ABA form with a repeat of the first part. The
orchestration follows the tempo adjective of leggiero, light: flutes, oboes, 1 clarinet, 1 bassoon in
the high register, harp, violins and violas in pizzicato pianissimo. Notice the complete absence of
the double basses throughout the whole movement.

The first 4 bars are characterized by short eight notes with grace notes, forming a light melody in
the flutes. The melody is answered with an ascending scale. Notice the grace notes element in the
oboes overlapping the bassoon's scale.
The episode is repeated, with an expansion of the scales stopping all the way up on a D flat
before the repeat

The Trio maintains the same lightness: the grace notes are still present in the main line sustained
by trills of the first violins and a pedal of the horn on the F
The eight bars phrase is repeated, with a different orchestration. So much color is added by Ravel
by using a different technique in the flutes and by the addition of the celesta and a few other
instruments.

Look at the second violins divisi in pizzicato chords, or at the snare drum with one regular hit
and one on the rim of the instrument
The second phrase follows the same pattern. First the oboe, in its highest register, where it can
sound a bit more duck-like
Then the rest, with the line given to the first violins

The A section returns, and the movement closes as light as it began.

Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuÿle

No promenade follows the previous movement and Mussorgsky starts right away with the
depiction of two jews, Goldenberg and Schmuÿle, most likely from two separate portraits.

The structure depicts first Samuel Goldenberg (the opening Andante, up to rehearsal number 58),
then Schmuÿle (58-60); both themes overlap in a third section (60-62) to which a coda is added.
Notice the use of the augmented second interval, typical of a lot of Jewish music, winking at the
phrygian scale.

The ominous beginning in Bb minor is played out in unison by the strings and the woodwinds
minus the flutes and oboes in which place an English horn is used to darken the color.
The second portrait takes shape into a solo trumpet with mute on an obsessive rhythm in triplets
sustained by the chromatism of the oboe and the English horn.
Notice the bass clarinet supporting the end of each passage: it avoids a break in the sound while
giving a chance to the woodwind players to breathe.

The two-bars phrase is repeated and the chromatism passes onto the bassoons, helped by the
clarinet.
The exchange continues till the trumpets end the section with a small florilegium and connects
directly to the next section. While they keep their obsessive rhythm, clarinets, bassoons, violas,
and basses take on a variation on Samuel Goldenberg's theme.

The coda picks up on elements of the first portrait and ends with the common figure between the
two - the triplet - in an imperative fortissimo in full orchestra.
Limoges
While the piano version maintains the promenade, Ravel's orchestral version excludes it, going
right into what Statov describes as "French women quarrelling violently in the market."
Limoges is a city in central France. Mussorgsky originally provided two paragraphs in French
that described a marketplace discussion (the 'great news'), but subsequently crossed them out in
the manuscript.

Once again, the structure is an ABA with a coda, which leads directly into the following
movement. Mussorgsky, of course, changes tone, moving to a bright Eb major. The fast pace of
the movement and the scattered scene of a market is enhanced by Ravel's orchestration in which
the line moves constantly from one section to another.
This movement is particularly demanding for the horns, with all their repeated notes. They, in
fact, open the movement, making way for the theme presented by the first violins shortly joined
by the woodwinds.

Notice all the little details that Ravel puts in his orchestration to help recreate the atmosphere of
a market: the triangle, the cymbals, the snare drum. And, once again, the absence of the double
basses, helping the general lightness of the sound.
It's a 2-bars phrase, repeated. One element, the quadruplet of 16th notes, is used in the following
3 bars, bouncing back and forth between instruments - bassoon, clarinet, flute - and transformed
into a descending scale
Part of the first phrase is repeated…

…and we approach the B section. The material remains the same, reworked in various manners.
The change of meter to ¾ helps create the sensation of, perhaps, something falling, or someone
tumbling.

The great fragmentation of the material across different sections of the orchestra increases the
scatteredness of the scene, underlined by the street noises of the triangle and the snare drum.
The episode is brief and after a climactic couple of bars - ending in a shrieking noise - a
downward chromatic scale leads to a reprise of the A section.
The coda is a slow section built on elements of the main theme. The repeated notes of the horns
are quite challenging

Only 4 bars, with a poco accelerando, and we go straight into the next movement.

Catacombae: Sepulchrum Romanum

This movement is split into 2 parts. The first one is an ominous Largo built on blocks of chords,
shifting dynamics from pianissimo to fortissimo. The asperities of the scene is well evident in the
loud dissonant chords, in example in bar number 4.

Everything is obviously very dark: the orchestration makes use of the brass, almost exclusively,
with some help from the bassoons and the double basses, and, later, the clarinets.

There is no melody here, no theme. Only the sensation of stillness, with time frozen in darkness.
A solo trumpet adds a touch of melancholy
And this first part comes to an end. Notice the touch of darkness added by the Tam-tam on the
last chord, made even more terrifying by the horns in bouché.

The second part of this movement is less ominous, with the idea of, perhaps, finding some peace
in the end.

Mussorgsky's manuscript presents two side notes: "NB – Latin text: With the dead in a dead
language" and "Well may it be in Latin! The creative spirit of the dead Hartmann leads me
towards the skulls, invokes them; the skulls begin to glow softly."
Con mortuis in lingua mortua (With the dead in a dead language) also became the title of this
second part which, unlike the first, does have a theme: the promenade, transformed in B minor,
first heard in the oboe and English horn…

…and then in the bassoons and basses. Notice the descending chromatic line of the second
violins and violas

After the episode is repeated, the music opens up, letting in a bit of light. The orchestration is
typical of Ravel, making use of the harmonics in the double basses and cellos to color the sound
in a very subtle way.
The movement slowly comes to an end, finishing on a B major chord.

The Hut on Hen’s Legs

After the somberness of the previous movement, which included a variation of the Promenade in
B minor, Mussorgsky presents us with a new painting, changing tone completely and jumping
into an Allegro con brio. The adjective feroce adds the idea of something wild.

In Statov's comment: "Hartmann's drawing depicted a clock in the form of Baba Yaga's hut on
fowl's legs." In Slavic folklore, Baba Yaga is a supernatural being who appears as a deformed or
ferocious-looking old woman. The Baba Yaga lived in a hut usually described as standing on
chicken legs.

The movement is built on an ABA plus coda structure. The motives in this movement evoke the
bells of a large clock and the whirlwind sounds of a chase.

The lines are a succession of ups and downs. A cell of the motive is used to build an upward
chromatic scale…

…answered by a downward motif.

The scale is expanded by the brass and the clock's bells resound brightly in the trumpets and
horns.

The material is expanded: the quarter note alternate with the eight notes heard earlier in a
combination that becomes tighter and tighter. Notice also the great use of percussions: timpani,
triangle, snare drum, cymbals.
The line moves down, sweeps back up, and then down again, ending up on the clock's quarter
notes and moving to the central part of the movement.

The central section - the Trio of this Scherzo - is in a contrasting Andante mosso.
Flutes 1 and 2 alternate an accompaniment in triplets while a bassoon and the double basses
make use of the material we heard in the first part.
The conversation continues, including the clarinets and the rest of the strings in it

It's all very delicate and airy. Until it's not anymore. The atmosphere becomes heavier and the
tuba, doubled by the cellos and basses, is entrusted with the motif.

The Allegro molto that follows is an almost identical repetition of the first part.
The coda develops as a long scale and leading right into the final painting
 The Great Gate at Kiev
According to Statov "Hartmann's sketch was his design for city gates at Kiev in the ancient
Russian massive style with a cupola shaped like a Slavonic helmet."

Hartmann designed a monumental gate for Tsar Alexander II to commemorate the monarch's
narrow escape from an assassination attempt on April 4, 1866. His design won the national
competition but plans to build the structure were later canceled.

The movement is structured as a Rondo with ABAB-CADA form

· A: Main Theme (f, then ff); maestoso, con grandezza
· B: Hymn Theme (p) (A♭ minor); senza espressione (without expression)
· A: Main Theme (f);
· B: Hymn Theme (p) (E♭ minor); senza espressione
· C: Interlude/Transition (mf to f); promenade theme recalled.
· A: Main Theme (ff); Meno mosso, sempre maestoso.
· D: Interlude/Transition (mf)
· A: Main Theme (ff); Grave, sempre allargando.

The opening is given to the brass, bassoons, and percussions, in a majestic Eb major.
The woodwinds join in, to conclude the phrase

And the episode is repeated in fortissimo in full orchestra.

The following part - the B section - is very solemn, and it is based on a baptismal hymn from the
repertory of Russian Orthodox chant. Ravel assigns this Ab minor chant to the clarinets and
bassoons

The main theme returns, accompanied by ascending and descending figures in the woodwinds
and strings. Notice the 2 harps doubling these scales.

It's time for the hymn again, now in Eb minor and supported by the oboes and flutes.
The following section - C in the Rondo succession - immediately reminds of the previous
painting, with the clocks and bells.
The crescendo expands on the same idea, including all sections of the orchestra gradually, until
we hear the Promenade's theme

The main motif of the movement is back once again, with, yet, another variation in the
orchestration. Notice the triplets in the strings, giving movement and tension.
On final transition takes advantage of those triplets…

…and leads to the very end of this masterpiece where the motif explodes in all its grandiosity.
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