Pictures at an Exhibition
The piano cycle " Pictures at an Exhibition " - Memories of Viktor Hartmann ( Russian " Картинки с выставки " - Воспоминание о Викторе Гартмане transcribed Kartinki s wystawki - wospominanije o Wiktore Gartmane ) is a composition by Modest Mussorgsky in 1874, commonly referred to as prime example is seen for program music. The individual records describe paintings and drawings of his earlier died in friend Viktor Hartmann, Mussorgsky had seen on a memorial exhibition. The work was written at the suggestion of a mutual friend, the art critic Vladimir Stasov. He was also involved in the naming of the pieces and it was dedicated to the cycle.
The richness of tone colors inspired early on to other composers, for orchestra and other instrumental pieces to process the work. The best known is the processing of Maurice Ravel.
Sets
The following table shows ten images.
In the left column, the original titles are listed next to it is the German title or the direct translation. In the right column to find alternative names of the sets.
Substantive Explanation
The work gives the impression of a tour through an exhibition of works of Hartmann.
- It starts with the "Promenade", which recurs easily changed between subsequent pieces. Moussorgsky spoke of the promenade representing himself, as he wander around between the exhibits to look at them. The promenade appeared several times in situation-adapted variants as a reconciliation between the pieces.
- " Gnomus " is the first picture: A dwarf jumping around awkwardly on misshapen legs. The music depicts different forms of movement of the gnome: wild flailing gestures, interspersed with stock stiff solidification, insane jumps, bizarre limping and stumbling, darkly menacing crawl, which is interrupted by eruptive bulk spells. A fortissimo outburst combines the " slow design" with a lamentoartigen chromatic downward motion, so that the impression of an equally threatening as pained advance torturing arises. Against the background of creepy eerie trills and runs in the bass region, the limping stumble miserable creature increases to garish dissonant screaming fits before - after acting as a scare general pause - the gnome disappears with a bizarre zigzag course. This run is the way with his two rules: con tutta forza ( with all his strength ) and Velocissimo ( extremely familiar ) a particularly difficult technical challenge game.
- "Il vecchio castello " - " The Old Castle " was decorated by Stasov with the addition: " Before a singing troubadour is ". It is a quiet romance melancholy nature ( Andantino molto cantabile e con dolore ). The accompaniment and the prelude and the interludes between the verses remind us of the game a medieval hurdy-gurdy with her by sounding drone bass.
- " Tuileries " give the afternoon image of the famous parks in Paris again: Raging children who are haunting, but in vain exhorted by their governesses. The unctuous words of the teachers are interrupted by cheerful interjections of not unruly children.
- " Bydło " is a Polish heavy ox-carts. Cumbersome and wide he comes; the piece, the monotonous rolling wheels and the dull plodding steps of the oxen acoustically dar. Although to be played from the beginning fortissimo, a further increase by chordal extension of the sentence and the rule con tutta forza (done in the middle of the piece with all force). Towards the end of the music got quieter and quieter ( perdendosi ): the strange vehicle is lost in the distance.
- " Ballet of the Chicks Unhatched ": Hartmann's picture shows a costume design for the performance of a ballet titled Trilby. The music is characterized with many suggestions and trills the picture of feather-light, mercurial chicks toddling around happily pecking and chirping.
- " Samuel ' Goldenberg and Schmuyle ' " are two Jews, one rich and ponderous, the other poor and torn. The motive to " Samuel " Goldenberg is correspondingly broad and weighty, Goldberg "speaks" with booming bass. Quite different " Schmuyle ": It is characterized by a pesky whining and nagging. The repetitions in the right hand are technically very demanding. At the end of the piece, both motifs are brought together: the left hand plays Goldberg, the right Schmuyle. The dispute of the two increases and ends abruptly with the harsh dissonance of an augmented triad. The lamenting chromatic final passage (con dolore ) suggests the image of the apparently inferior Schmuyle who slinks like a drowned rat, while it the " winner " even after sending some abruptly thrown threatening gestures.
- "Limoges " is a reflection of everyday bustle of the market: Lively maze, screaming sellers, competing market women. In the end, the pace of the whole piece continuous staccato movement accelerated to a wild vortex with accelerando screwed itself up and then abruptly ( attacca ) crashes into the depths of the catacombs described in the next picture.
- " Catacombae " and "Cum mortuis in lingua mortua " provide a transition Hartmanns by the Paris catacombs Represents the piece this reflects a somber mood that can easily arise in the catacombs of Paris in the face of stacked bones and skulls. Long echoing chords sound sometimes with brutal force shocking fortissimo, and partly halls quietly and eerily out of the mysterious depths of the vault.
- " The Hut on Hen's Legs " Baba Yaga is a witch of Russian folk tale. She lives in a dark forest, where they lie in wait for unsuspecting passersby, luring them into her hut and eats. My house stands on chicken feet, so that it can turn to the new arrivals to the input, no matter from which direction they come from. She herself does not ride around on a broom, but in a mortar, which she drives to the ram. Its weighty pounding determines the character of the wild witches Ritts, the Mussorgsky in the corner parts of this piece describes, while the eerie atmosphere of the forest thicket is summoned in the middle part. For the eerie siren calls of the witch Mussorgsky used the "Devil's interval " tritone.
- " The Great Gate of Kiev" refers to the graphic design Hartmanns for a city gate with a bell tower and a small church inside. With a full grip and Bass proposals " overweight " designed theme Mussorgsky describes the majestic size of the gate. In a repetition of this topic are in addition octave scale figures, which allude to the rich ornamentation. The religious aspect is indicated by two inserted episodes in the four-part chorale setting. Bell -like chords in the bass rock by adding write Kicking gradually accelerated middle and upper voices into a rich chiming in, in the quasi apothetisch finally emerges the promenade theme. After a further increase in the initial theme again appears in a form which utilizes the maximum sonority of the piano, even tried to blow up and the previous " bell ringing " involving. After a further increase passage that swells the ringing to the noisy din, the piece with a monumental Apotheosis of the main theme and huge final chords ends.
The relationship to the image templates
Rash for Mussorgsky's composition gave the memorial exhibition for Viktor Hartmann, which took place in February and March 1874 in the Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg. Whether to all records ever actually existed image templates or whether some of the images are perhaps sprung directly Mussorgsky's imagination, not least given the difficult source material to Viktor Hartmann's pictures, many of which are lost, difficult to clarify. There is no original image to the connecting promenade; here Mussorgsky characterized simply strolling in the exhibition in changing moods, where a lasting effect, a single previous motif or the emerging its shadow throws.
Not all sets of " Pictures at an Exhibition " are also corresponding images Hartmanns receive. Only three of the set to music by Mussorgsky Pictures were ever included in the Exhibition of 1874: the "Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks " ( a costume design for the ballet Trilbi the composer Julius Gerber and choreographer Marius Petipa ), "The Hut on Hen's Legs ( Baba Yaga ) "( a sketch for a bronze clock ) and" The Great Gate of Kiev "(an unexecuted architectural design ).
As a template to ", Samuel ' Goldenberg and Schmuyle ' " can be two separate pencil drawings of two Jews identify, were in Mussorgsky's privately owned and are lost, but which are preserved in each case a variant as a watercolor. Further still, there is a picture Hartmann's Catacombs. Whether this actually served as a template to the set Catacombae ( sepulc [h ] rum romanum ), remains speculative. A Roman tomb, as indicated in the title, is not shown in the picture Hartmanns.
Gallery
The rich Jew " Samuel Goldenberg "
The poor Jew " Schmuyle "
" Catacombae " Watercolor by Viktor Hartmann
Design for a clock in the form of the hut of Baba Yaga by Viktor Hartmann
Design to a gate of Kiev Viktor Hartmann
Edits
It is often noted that this piano cycle out for a orchestral version requires correspondingly varied are the Versions. As a result, other arrangements were not made ; His recent recording of Ivo Pogorelich has but gives the pianistic magic of the pictures to life.
For orchestra
- Already Nikolai Rimsky -Korsakov, also a member of the " Group of Five ", orchestrated two sets of the work. This fact was repeatedly rise to speculation as to what extent Mussorgsky himself might have been thinking about an orchestral version. However, it is not even proves that Rimsky-Korsakov, Mussorgsky informed.
Other
Occupation of the orchestra by Maurice Ravel
3 flutes (. 2 3 also piccolo ), 3 oboes (3rd also English horn ), 2 clarinets (both: B A), 1 bass clarinet (B A), 2 bassoons, 1 contra-bassoon, alto saxophone 1 (Es)
4 Horns (F ), 3 trumpets (C ), 3 trombones, 1 tuba
Timpani, percussion ( triangle, tambourine, whip, ratchet, cymbals, bass drum, tam-tam ), glockenspiel, xylophone, tubular bell or bell ( only time )
2 harps
Strings