So many different orch./arr. of Pictures at an Exhibition

[Jeff Keller]

Did you get Karajan's? (sp)

jeff

[Chuck(G)]

The list is fairly incomplete.

How about the progressive rock version done back in 1972 by the Brit band Emerson, Lake and Palmer or the synth version recorded by Tomita? How about the guitar version by Kazuhito Yamashita? Or the percussion setting by Henk de Vlieger?

[Bill Troiano]

Here's what the program notes from the NY Phil concert says about it...
"The most famous orchestration of Musorgsky's piano suite was created in 1922 by Maurice Ravel, who encountered the piece in a cleaned-up version by Rimsky-Korsakov. But other orchestral versions have been produced over the years, mostly by conductors, including Mikhail Tushmalov (again as revised by Rimsky-Korsakov), Sir Henry Wood, Nikolai Tcherepnin, Lucien Cailliet, Leopold Stokowski, Walter Goehr, Leo Funtek, and Vladimir Ashkenazy. Sergei Gorchakov, a respected Moscow Conservatory professor, aimed in his 1954 orchestration to capture the kind of primal sounds found in Musorgsky's own orchestral works - as opposed to Rimsky-Korsakov's revision of them. The resultant transcription makes a strong argument for being the most "Musorgskian", as we have come to understand that term in recent years."
I was also curious to see Musorgsky spelled with one "s" throughout the program. I don't know if it's a printing error or perhaps, just another spelling. Or maybe, Rimsky-Korsakov revised M.'s name too.

[Rick Denney]

...is that Ravel learned of the piece's existance through an altered (edited or arranged) version of the original piano work...

I agree with Wade that the Ravel arrangement has the characteristic sound of Ravel and not of Rimsky-Korsakov. I have a recording of the original work for piano four-hands, and I'll have to dig it up to see if it makes any mention in the notes of the piano work being "cleaned up" by R-K.

Of course, it was Koussevitzky who commissioned Ravel to make the arrangement, so perhaps he had a particular version he wanted. All I've heard suggests he was working from the piano version.

I've heard several of the versions, the Funtek in particular. Ravel is a much better orchestrator.

Hindsley made an arrangement for band, and I would have to say that it is a band arrangement of the Ravel orchestration. I have a remarkable recording of that arrangement made by the Army Field Band. Hindsley was brilliant in capturing orchestral tone colors in band works.

And, regarding various spelling of Mussorgsky, we should remember that all western spellings are transliterations from the Russian Cyrillic alphabet. Variations will naturally occur, depending on whether the transliterator is trying to match it up letter for letter, letter shape for letter shape, or sound for sound (and, if the latter, the language bring targeted brings its own pronunciation rules that will affect the result). We've all seen Rimsky-Korsakov as Rimsky-Korsakoff, which is a more accurate prounciation.

For example, I own a number of cameras made by the Arsenal factory in the Ukraine. Their brand is "Kiev", which is transliterated letter for letter. A letter-shape-for-letter-shape transliteration would be "Kneb". And a sound-for-sound transliteration would be "Keef". The first two are common, because people don't realize that those Cyrillic characters that resemble "Kneb" actually spell a city name they've heard of.

Rick "who likes the Ravel arrangement because of liking Ravel actually more than Mussorgsky" Denney