In all the hours I’ve spent listening to and reading you, nothing I have experienced popping out of your brain has been as cogently descriptive, utterly inventive, or as perfectly comprehensible as your comment about Puritans and pornography. I am so envious of your ability to both help me understand and make me laugh in the space of one toss-off phrase. Bravo to your critic’s soul.
I first heard Pictures as a young person by Emerson Lake and Palmer! Rock version my favorite for years! Then I discovered that it was a classical piece. Of course I enjoy the classical, but ELP really rocked it!
Agreed that Ravel's version is the best one. I do enjoy listening to Ashkenazy's, but it is way to literal to the piano version. Like at the very end of Kiev, with the tied over grace notes in the bass octaves. Mussorgsky only did that because people only have two hands, not three. But Ashkenazy can't think beyond that limitation. Although Ravel omitted and recomposed some little things here and there in his version, I believe he did it for arranging reasons. They are NOT mistakes. I enjoy your commentaries here, David. This piece, Mahler's hammer, Bruckner's forms, etc, have always been on my mind. It's great to see this on a more public forum like RU-vid. Keep it up!
David! Wonderful post! I agree about the Toscanini. I recall the very first time I ever heard this recording was on a Saturday afternoon way back on WQXR-FM in New York. The piece had started already but because I love “Pictures…”, I stopped and just sat down to listen. By the end, I was literally moved to tears by what I had heard. Wow! And then the DJ ( I recall it was Clayelle Dalferes who did weekends and overnights) remark we had heard Toscanini and The NBC! Even she was moved and marveled at the performance. What music! What music making! Ordered that recording immediately the next day.
Solti's Chicago version is marvelous. Dynamic. The gate of Kiev, the millisecond death silence pulse before full blown tutti of each blow really make my spine shiver. I could visual the greatness of heaven and sky falling. The reciting of the opening walking theme means the view has merged himself into the pictures. He has met his friend in heaven.
Listened to CSO's 1990 recording under Solti from Japan, then the CSO 2022 short "Great Gate" excerpt under Muti. 32 years on and the orchestra has lost none of its power, emotion, and dare I say, soul. If anything, the brass is even more thundering. And the audience is almost as exuberant.
Hard to believe that Pictures with Lorin Maazel conducting the magnificent Cleveland Orchestra has been one of my favorite recordings for 40 years! Such an amazing confluence of great director, musicians, and recording engineers! Don't laugh, but I came to Pictures at an Exhibition first as a teenager by way of Emerson, Lake and Palmer. It remains astonishing that a rock band would take on such a project. While it may not please the purists out there, I have great appreciation for the late, great Keith Emerson and his appreciation for not only Moussorgsky but other classical composers such as Aaron Copeland.
The Maazel recording was one of the first CDs I bought when the format was introduced, after Stereo Review raved about it. It's musically and sonically superb.
Probably, the Pictures at an exhibition, in their original version for piano, deserve a video too. After all, when they appeared in 1874, they didn’t sound like anything heard before. Mussorgsky, even as an amateur pianist, invented a new sonority. And as it happened for other Mussorgsky works, at the beginning his intentions were not understood, and the score was published only in 1886, edited by Rimsky Korsakov, and eventually appeared in the original form only in 1931. More than Balakiriev’s Islamey, composed just few years before, the Pictures can be considered the first great Russian piano masterpiece.
De acuerdo, una genial y original obra para piano, dónde está toda la grandeza de musorsky, sabiendo de que se trata cada pintura es increíble lo que logra, lo de Ravel es maravilloso también pero la genialidad es de musorsky.
My absolute favorite is Evgeny Svetlanov with the USSR State Symphony Orchestra. It's very slow (a lot like Guilini and Sinopoli), but it made me realize that I like it slow.
Enjoyed this review very much , and I agree with your recommendations. The Ormandy on Sony is a particular favorite, as it served as my introduction to this score back in the 1960"s. I have three additional favorites : Sinopoli/NYPO on DG, Giulini/CSO on DG, and Kaspszyk/LSO on Collins Classics (remember them ?). All three are excellent, very well played and recorded. The Kaspszyk is very difficult to find now. Reiner continues to blow me away with the CSO's imposing virtuosity on full display, and I have been a huge fan of Bud Herseth for many years. Yoel Levi's recording on Telarc is one of the best things he did in Atlanta, but it tends to be overshadowed by other recordings, including Maazel for the same label.
I just happened to discover a recording by Levi and Atlanta... My GOD it is the loudest thing I’ve ever herd and I LOVED it! The brass absolutely blow the walls down and somehow it comes through so well in the recording. It had me laughing out loud it was so entertaining.
@Nicholas Herboso please upload it. I lost my copy years ago. It's probably the most powerful feeling version there is. Telarc made amazing recordings.
I recently discovered Ozawa/Chicago: what a stunner! Analytical with amazingly evocative colors and dynamism where needed. Calm tempos, but no boredom at all. And, as is often with me, I kinda love Sinopoli/NY, interesting and debatable as usual. David's top choices I totally second, by the way.
My first exposure to Pictures was via that Ansermet recording with the Swiss Romande. With every recorded performance I heard subsequently, I listened in vain for that magnificent deep bass organ pedal at the end. Now after 50+ years, courtesy of this video, I learn that no other recording has it because Ravel never wrote it… It was a “touchup“ by Ansermet! Ah, the delights and dangers of imprinting!
Thanks for mentioning the Ancerl, but there are several listed on Amazon. They are all with the Czech Phil. there is even one on Tahra. Recommendation Dave please?
One of my all time favorite concerts was Abbado and the Chicago Symphony doing Pictures. This was either late in 1983 or early 1984. First half of the concert was Rudolph Serkin doing the Beethoven 4th Piano Concerto. WFMT must have a tape of this somewhere in their archives; I would pay dearly for it.
Oddly enough, as a teenaged classical LP collector, that very Ormandy was my first Pics. I’ve never forgotten it and it’s as good as any….despite the accolades to Reiner….and better than most.
David imagine being a twenty-something and getting to hear Eugene ormandy live in the Academy of Music doing Pictures at an Exhibition, not once but twice ! Got to talk to him about it too especially his beloved Rachmaninoff 2nd Symphony where we chatted specifically about the big tune in the last movement. God bless you
Bravo Mr. Hurwitz! Yeah, Ansermet is a great performance! I personally love the Karajan / Berlin Philharmonic on DG (1964); for the historical: Antonio Pedrotti with Czech Philharmonic and Guido Cantelli with the NBC Symphony (Live)...really impressive! Recently I bought a cd with Philippe Jordan and the Paris National Opera Orchestra...their Pictures have a very french smoothness! I like also Alain Lombard and Strasbourg Philharmonic on Erato, as well as Jean Claude Casadesus with the Royal Philharmonic...but in my opinion two of the best ever are the Karajan above mentioned and Bernstein with NYPO...the Pedrotti performance with Czech Philharmonic also is really surprising!
I recently streamed all of Cluytens' recordings that I could find here on youtube. The ORF recording on Urania is okay, and there's the video of the Paris radio orchestra, but really the Paris Conservatoire is the one of his to hear. On youtube, I could find it only in the looong "remastered complete Cluytens mono recordings" playlist, but the tracks are in order and easy enough to find.
This is going to seem from way out in left field to likely many people, but I have a warm spot in my heart for the Sinopoli/NYPO. He’s actually on very good behavior for this performance. But the real star is the New York Philharmonic, which plays with a stunning virtuosity similar to their Mahler 5th with Zubin Mehta. Ditto for the coupled Ravel Valses nobles et sentimentales. IGreat sound, too.
I also really like the Sinopoli & NYP version! For me it is nearly on par with Solti & CSO version (THE best in my opinion)- That brass is just stunning (as always)...!
You’re not out of left field at all. In terms of the brass playing, in particular, the principal trumpet Phil Smith, this is far and away the best performance and that includes Herseth and the CSO. And your reference to the Mehta Mahler 5 is apt. That Mahler 5 is without question the best performance by the brass.
On RU-vid, there’s a terrific performance of Pictures conducted by Leonard Slatkin with Detroit. I particularly like Slatkin’s interpretation and of course he is an expert on the piece.
Great discussion! Briefly, my nomination for the most bombastic Great Gate Finale would be Yan Pascal Torteiler with the BBC Philharmonic from 1993. Free disc on the Magazine cover.
It was quite a lucky find for me to get the Ormandy (coupled with the Boris Godunov-Shippers) on Sony Classical Great Performances as a thrift store pickup.
I loved Ormandy when I was in high school. Then in college, I was surrounded by snooty people who put down his work as too schmaltzy and being impressionable, I listened. to them. Two or three years ago (i.e., something like 35 years later), I heard his Mahler 1 and thought it was amongst the best I had ever heard, and so I started listening to his stuff again. It is consistently very, very good, and his best stuff (like this) is among the very best.
Agreed, he and the orchestra had all the virtuosic self-confidence of the other “name brand” conductor/orchestras of the Sixties, and none of the arrogance.
I'm not David Hurwitz, but speaking for myself, I'm in agreement about Horowitz's version. It's an improvement on the original, yet thoroughly idiomatic. And his performance is astounding.
For me, the young Alfred Brendl's 1952 recording (which also includes a good Petrouchka and an Islamey) still knocks my socks off though I've heard dozens of others perform the piano score. Brendl played with a passion that communicated with a blues music lover then and turned me more assuredly towards classical music. I still like blues though.
Ironic that there was a tug of war between Britain and France over the EMI sound equipment. Here we are 70 years later and they are still arguing this time over fishing rights in the context of a potential Brexit deal. Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose!! As for Mussorgsky, I have always enjoyed that Chicago Giulini performance. And for Claudio Abbado, one of his very best records I think was his Boston recording of Ravel Daphnis et Chloe Suite no 2 and Debussy Nocturnes. Fabulous.
I'm way behind here, obviously, but I've owned the alternatives listed and still think Karajan's 60s recording is the best played and best sounding. Help! And of the suggested good ones, the Abbado, though beautifully played and recorded allows the tension to drop at several key points. Reiner is OK. Ormandy sounds very 'glassy' to my ears - and what's happening to the tempo in Bydlo?! Szell's sounds great. I'm a fan of Szell anyway. His sounds more like a 'chamber' version to me; the inner detail and playing in the winds and brass is amazing. All it needs is the strings to sound more like Karajan's BPO of 1966 in the dramatic passages. Anybody else notice how Szell's and Karajan's tempo choices are almost identical?
Despite some rather unkempt orchestral execution at times, the old stereo Ansermet discs are prized by “audiophools “. Combination of an lovely acoustic space which was captured beautifully by the Decca engineers, and Ansermet’s sense of what an orchestra should sound like….crisp attack, minimal string vibrato, and piercing WWs and brass. It does have it’s merits. Ansermet’s style was unsentimental and low on intervention, and that appeals to a lot of listeners. Late in life, I’ve come to appreciate the clear transparency of orchestral texture, even if I have to grit my teeth at the winds and brass at times.
When the Kubelik/Chicago legacy was re-released on three mono LPs this piece "clicked" for me. The sound is not great, but it was surprisingly good for its day. It is a shame that no one asked him to redo it in stereo.
Help me out here please. Ormandy recorded this in mono, it's in the big box and I like it. But this is not in the new big Sony box just released (Nov 2023). Is it only available as a singleton?
The stereo recording(s) came later. You'll have to wait for the next box, or get the two-disc Japanese Sony Ravel collection. It's in there and the rest is pretty terrific too.
Herbert von Karajan's 1966 recording with the Berlin Philharmonic is probably my favorite. I paid all of $5 CAN for it on the Eloquence label and I thought I got more than my money's worth.
It's interesting to listen to pre-Ravel orchestrations such as the one by Mikhail Tushmalov (probably made with the aid of Rimsky-Korsakov). The overlaps between the two show the "inevitabilities" David talks about. I like the nimbleness of Tushmalov's work though - it's totally unlike Wood's (which also predates Ravel) gargantuine approach. There are some striking similarities with Ravel's orchestration that are not necessarily inevitable (e.g., the use of woodwinds in the Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks) and which lead to the suggestion that perhaps Ravel borrowed from Tushmalov.
I don't like that Ormandy version for one simple reason: the Bydlo frame carries it too fast, when bydlo are oxen pulling a heavy wheeled cart in the dirt fields. I always choose my versions of Pictures by listening to this theme. If it is slow and heavy, but with the tension it deserves, then the conductor has understood the whole work. For me, the best versions are Reiner/Chicago and Celibidache/Munich for this very reason, as well as being generally terrifically well played and with understood tempos in each picture.
personally i think pictures needs superior virtuosity and also a skill to define each picture eloquently but the key is not to overdo it. musically define each picture with taste in regards to interpretation and play with the utmost orchestral skill. reiner, cso gets it and a personal favorite is karajan, bpo, 1966 and a respectful nod to Szell as well
I agree with you regarding the brilliance of the Ormandy recording except for one poit: Bydlo - the Polish oxwagen. Ormandy's tempo here is way too fast- his Bydlo sound more like it is pulled by horsed instead of oxen. For me the most perfect recording of Pictures is Vasiley Petrenko - in my view his recording is equal to Ormandy in terms of orchestral brilliance and virtuosity, and recorded sound as well, BUT Petrenko's Bydlo is instead truly an ox wagon instead of a horse carriage. That for me makes the Petrenko the HOWEVER recording (if I may borrow mr.Hurwitz expression) of the orchestrated version of this Mussorgsky masterpiece.
You hit my three favorites: Maazel, Ormandy, Reiner. I think it was a shame though, that Ormandy didn't re-record the version done for him by Lucien Cailliet. For my taste, it's superior to Ravel. I hope someone makes a modern recording of it someday.
I know that you dismissed all other orchestrations in comparison to Ravel’s but I have to say, I just finished listening to the Ormandy/Philadelphia (on a superb, budget 10-CD box on the Documents label) using the Lucien Cailliet orchestration and thoroughly enjoyed it. By the way, the only way to appreciate this work is orchestrally - the piano version leaves me cold...
@@DavesClassicalGuide You are quite right, I stand corrected. But this brings up an interesting question - what makes an artistic creation “successful” - isn’t the appreciation or enjoyment of an artistic creation all subjective anyway?
@@ozoz9582 In this case, there is a subjective element, but if you add to the measure of success the objective fact of most popular and most frequently performed and recorded for nearly a century, then the objective pretty much overwhelms the subjective. I know--it's music, and art, and all that, but there are some cases where facts are facts, plain and simple, and one's personal opinion is irrelevant in the face of the overwhelming reality.
Well said, One thing is certain: your videos must DEFINITELY be successful because I am learning so much and am enjoying them tremendously - thank you for that...
I truly admire Herseth, but there are a LOT of great principal trumpet players that are just as good, but just a bit different style. Gil Johnson under Ormandy is every bit as good as Herseth, with a great declaratory style. Susan Slaughter in St Louis is so often overlooked because she is a woman, but her playing is amazing. Just listen to the old Slatkin Rachmaninov Symphonic Dances!!! Ghitalla. Vacchiano. Adelstein. Kaderabek. Stevens. I could go on. All of these players are easily on the same level as Herseth.
Have to disagree with Mr. Hurwitz about the Ravel transcription being the best. For one thing, as Hurwitz himself admitted, Ravel used a corrupted text of the piano original. This is most definitely an issue in "Bydlo"--- the correct piano version starts off ff (fortissimo), which correctly portrays the effect M.M. wanted, namely, the stunning impact of the painting as MM himself wanders through the museum. I would therefore insist that the Ashkenazy is the best--- aside from it being more faithful to the piano original, the playing of it with VA on the podium with the Royal Phil is astounding, and of course Vlad plays the piano original as well.
I most definitely prefer Stokowski's arrangement best. The Great Gate of Kiev has much more bells, woodwinds, and strings, which I prefer to the somewhat anemic sounding orchestration Ravel did. Sure, Stoki borrows a bit, but he made it better. More instruments just add more color for me. Listening to Ravel's version sounds to bland to me now. That's just me.
Nothing makes me feel quite as curmudgeonly as thinking about the Ravel orchestration. For me, all the genius is in Mussorgsky's original piano version, and Ravel's dazzling offering is like Citizen Kane or Casablanca in color. Unnecessary and loses and raw vitality of the music. Get off my lawn!
