T-Tauri – Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition

Out of the Netherlands comes this six-piece Symphonic Orchestra with a Rock’N’Roll attitude. And to demonstrate their talents, they’ve opted to play the strange and complicated masterpiece, Pictures at an Exhibition.

This pieces was written in the late 19th century by Russian composer, Modest Mussorgsky. He found his inspiration in a friend’s exhibition of paintings. The whole piece revolves around the exhibition and the various paintings on display. The piece was a little too strange to be properly understood and appreciated in its time. Mussorgsky was an alcoholic and had deep psychological problems, hence the strangeness of his music.

Originally written for the piano, French composer, Maurice Ravel extended it to the orchestra in the 1890’s. It was not well received. My opinion of it, from having heard it many times with Ravel’s arrangements, is simply that he did not understand the piece.

It might have fallen into obscurity except that nearly a century later, a three-piece band, Emerson, Lake & Palmer gave it a try. Playing it energetically with a build instead of a fade, and with modern instruments, the piece suddenly became clear. Thanks to that, it is now one of the most famous and popular Classical pieces today.

This interpretation is kind of half-way between Ravel and ELP. Certainly the emphasis is not as much on keyboards, but is rather distributed evenly through the violin, guitar, kettle drums & carillon.

The arrangement is superbly executed. The recurring, Promenade (Mussorgsky composed it as a recurrent piece), always comes out differently with different arrangements and a different instrument leading the piece. Very well thought out!

I also very much enjoyed the overall counterpoint of the beautiful frontwoman, Melli Oudejans with Bart Becks fine guitar licks.

A must for anyone.