A Meaningful Approach to "Pictures at an Exhibition"
By Michael Thornton, Principal Tubist, Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra

We musicians are often asked (and often ask ourselves), "What does a certain piece of music mean?" While essential to consider, I think that it's often more important to understand "how" the music means what it means. Pretty much the answer to the "what" question is found by considering the "how" question.

Modest Mussorgsky

I will not presume to explain or provide direction on the "proper" playing of the excerpts from Ravel's orchestration of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition . Rather, I have found that a pretty fair explanation of where and how the music came about will usually contribute to a positive performance. Modest Mussorgsky was born in Karevo in 1839 and died in St. Petersburg in 1881. He was born into a middle class family (whatever that was at the time!) with money but was not of the aristocracy. Mussorgsky learned to play the piano on his own at an early age and had no formal music training until later in his life. Consequently, many of his early works were abandoned before completion, probably out of frustration caused by a lack of compositional skills. Eventually, in 1857, he did receive some formal training, and, in 1863, he moved to Moscow.

It was at this time that he began to keep company with a group of friends, which included writers, poets, philosophers, painters, and other composers, who held that Russian artists should reject European artistic traditions and establish a "Russian Nationalistic" style in writing and music. Mussorgsky followed this approach by incorporating Russian folk-song qualities into his own songs. That is to say that he imitated the natural rhythms of the spoken Russian language, which also transferred into his instrumental music. Additionally, he composed songs and other music based on Russian historical themes. The notion that music should have grounding in reality--Russian reality (i.e. dealing with real people--the things they do--their ordinariness, such as stories, dances, religion, and decorations) and avoid the abstract or idealization of German or French style of music was very important to him.

On a different note, but one that comes into play in a huge way, Mussorgsky often succumbed to huge fits of mental depression and long bouts of excessive drinking, which sometimes resulted in alcoholic dementia (not unlike Revueltas).

Victor Hartmann, architect and painter, was one of Mussorgsky's close acquaintances from that circle of Russian artists. Mussorgsky thought that Hartmann's work exemplified many of the same ideals that he held important about Russian reality and social concerns. Unfortunately, Hartmann died very young (1874) and, as many who suffer from depression and dipsomania, Mussorgsky felt somehow responsible for his friend's death. Hartmann actually died of a brain anurism, nothing Mussorgsky could have ever prevented or treated.

Vladimir Strassov, a friend of both Mussorgsky and Hartmann, arranged for a memorial exhibition of about four hundred of the artist's paintings and drawings. Mussorgsky attended the showing and was moved to memorialize his friend in his own manner. Mussorgsky planned, as his own memorial to Hartmann, to "draw his music" to the best pictures by his friend, representing himself in a short musical signature as he strolled through the exhibition (he also called the "Promenades" intermezzos), joyfully or sadly recalling memories of Hartmann.

In Mussorgsky's composition appropriately entitled Pictures at an Exhibition , he often makes the music more about something or someone in the picture rather than the artwork itself. So, thinking of the "Catacombs" as an example, Hartmann can show us the catacombs with its rows of skulls, but it's Mussorgsky's music that conveys the eerie impression of them beginning to glow. Likewise, the music for the picture "Gnomus" is not about a drawing of a folk-style nutcracker, but rather it's about a stumbling, wailing, and disfigured gnome (Is this perhaps a more accurate musical self-portrait of Mussorgsky?). "Baba-Yaga" is not about the drawing of a Russian folk-decorated clock, but the witches hut on chicken legs lumbering through the dark Siberian woods looking for disobedient children to terrorize. "Goldenburg and Schmuyle" (which are two separate drawings) come to life to argue with one another. "Limoges le Marché" is more about the gossip, which people have come to collect at the marketplace rather than produce.

 

Pictures seems to be several works at once. On one level, it might be possible to view it as a trip through life. "Gnomus" and "Baba-Yaga" are the fairy tales or bedtime stories of our youth (Brothers Grimm, Thomas the Tank Engine, etc.). "The Unhatched Chicks" is your basic third grade Christmas show with Moms and Dads taking pictures and video cameras on tripods everywhere. "Goldenburg and Schmuyle" are the social concerns and moral character building of college days. "Great Gate" is religious contemplation and "Catacombs" might represent death (and hope). All the above are elements of a great single story, which suites Mussorgsky's need for a narrative, literary approach to music making.

On another level, I think that we can view Pictures as Mussorgsky's attempt to bring Hartmann back to life in a manner of speaking, or at least to join him in spirit.

Illustration 2. Victor Hartmann. A Poor Jew (pencil, watercolor 14 x 10.5 cm). Tretyakov Gallery, Moscow

Illustration 1. V. Hartmann. Canary Chicks in their Shells. A costume sketch for Gerber's ballet Trilbi (watercolor 17.6 x 25.3 cm). Institute of Russian Literature (Pushkin House), Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg.

Notice how the "Promenades" (Mussorgsky's musical depiction of himself) change in character and function as the piece progresses. The first promenade is sort of formal or ceremonial in nature, showing that Mussorgsky takes his friend's memorial exhibition to heart. The second and third promenades suggest Mussorgsky is looking forward towards the next picture as he strolls along. The fourth promenade, however, is looking backwards to "Bydlo" and reflecting on the misery of the Polish serfs (or perhaps his own misery with the loss of his friend). The next promenade is incorporated into "Cum mortuis." Mussorgsky is actually in the picture (musically speaking) with Hartmann. In the picture, Hartmann is actually the man with the tophat on the left. Was Mussorgsky's alcoholic dementia responsible for the choice of this picture? The music is very eerie, and yet, at the end of the movement, there is a ray of light or hope present.

Illustration 3. Victor Hartmann, Paris Catacombs . People pictured are Hartmann, Vasily Kenel, and a guide holding the lantern (watercolor 12.9 x 17 cm). State Russian Museum, St. Petersburg.

The next promenade is fully incorporated with the picture of the "The Great Gate of Kiev." Note in the picture, that a church is incorporated into the design of the gate. In the music the bells and the chant are all part of the Russian nationalistic style, which both men aspired to create. Yet, there's more. While Mussorgsky was not particularly a religious man, he knew how much a part of ordinary Russian life the Orthodox Church surely was. One was born and baptized into the church (incidentally, the chant tune included here in "Great Gate" is a slightly altered version of "As You are Baptized in Christ"), married in the church, and, upon your death, buried in the church cemetery. Many of the Russian serf's both ordinary and important life events revolved around the church.

The Orthodox Church bells are also an inescapable part of Russian life--daily bells and fabulous peels of ceremonial bells too! Think about the bells in the coronation scene in Boris Godunov --also the madness bells later on the clock scene. So Mussorgsky has all this extraordinary bell music involved in the Great Gate. Perhaps a point worth making here too is that in most Russian Orthodox churches, the bells are not run by swinging but also by hand hammering making particularly rhythms and tunes possible. In the "Great Gate," Mussorgsky is fully inside the picture, and he takes us with him! It is a momentous bit of music in which I believe Mussorgsky has fashioned a resurrection of Victor Hartmann (musically at least).

An especially interesting bit about Pictures is Mussorgsky's reliance on language and even a sort of narrative style of composition. One good example is an almost literal transfer of language to instrumental music in the "Goldenburg and Schmuyle" movement. This is based on two different drawings--one of a wealthy Jew and the other is an impoverished Jew. Mussorgsky brings them to life to have a conversation (or more like a argument) where you can practically hear them speaking Yiddish via the music. Imagine, if you will, Goldenburg singing in a deep pompous voice, "Oh what little man could you what from me?" And Schmuyle answering in a palsied-squeaky voice, "I just need a place to rest. I just want a piece of bread. I am very sick, could you help me please?" Not much of a stretch is it?

The other even more brilliant example is the "Limoges" movement. The market place in the small French city (the picture is gone now) is open and in a flurry of activity. There's not only produce and money to exchange, but gossip--lots and lots of gossip! You can hear the French women twittering away about all sorts of problems that "others" are having with businesses, children, and spouses. Mussorgsky even went so far as to jot down some of this imagined dialogue in the margins of the music.

Taking the language notion even further is the fact that Mussorgsky uses no fewer than six languages to entitle the movements. Mussorgsky was usually able to play finished movements at the piano before writing them down. Consequently, his manuscripts are pretty clean with only the rare patch to show any reworking or editing at all! The titles, however, show something different. Obviously he labored over the correct title of a piece (Hartmann rarely indicated a title for his work) and even struggled about the language with which to state the title.  

Here is a synopsis of movement titles for Pictures : 1. "Gnomus" (Latin: Gnomes). Illustration lost. 2. "Il vecchio castello" (Italian: The Old Castle). Illustration lost. 3. "Tuileries (Dispute d'enfants après jeux) (French: Tuileries: Argument between children at play). 4. "Bydlo" (Polish: Cattle). Illustration lost. 5. "Balet nevglupivshikhsy a ptentsov" (Russian: Ballet of the Un-hatched Chicks). 6. "Samuel Goldenburg und Schmuÿle" (Yiddish: Samuel Goldenburg and Schmulye). 7. "Limoges le marché: La grande nouvelle" (French: Lemognes the marketplace: the big news). Illustration lost. 8. "Catacombae: Sepulcrum romanum" (Latin: Catacombs: Roman Tombs); "Cum Mortius in lingua mortua" (Latin: With the dead in a dead language). 9. "Izbuska na kur'ikh nozhkakh: Baba-Yaga" (Russian: The Hut on Hen's legs: Baba Yaga). 10. "Bogatyrskie votrota: vo stol'nom gorode vo Kieve" (Russian: The Knight's Gate: in the ancient capital, Kiev).

Illustration 4. Victor Hartmann, Baba-Yaga's Hut on Hen's Legs . Drawing for a Russian-style clock (pencil 23.5 x 31.8 cm). Manuscript Department of the Saltykov-Shcedrin Public Library, St. Petersburg.

Allow me to interject at this point a note about "Bydlo" since it is of such giant importance to use of the bass and tenor tuba world. Bydlo is the Polish word for cattle. The picture is lost but is supposed to have been one of an ox pulling a cart with a Polish serf walking alongside. Mussorgsky has turned this into more of a social commentary of how Russians treated and imagined the Poles to be "cattle-like," which seems to be treated as a grotesque illustration of this oppressive treatment. I rather prefer to hear it as an assertion of the dignity of man. A thought which dies on the lips these days (perhaps from overuse) but in Czarist Russia this was a novel (and dangerous!) notion to express.

Illustration 5. Victor Hartmann, Design for Kiev City Gate (pencil and watercolor 42.9 x 60.8 cm). Institute of Russian Literature (Pushkin House), Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg.

This use of different languages is Mussorgsky's attempt for us to literally "get the right picture" creating an image for the music and then to continue to illustrate and illuminate. Just as he shifted languages for the titles of movements, he shifts styles of composition from one to the next. This is to accommodate the expressive needs of each movement, which is in fact consistent with his literary (realistic) technique of composition (like Charles Ives). Mussorgsky was quite a peculiar fellow and his music shows it! Even to the point of his "friends" later trying to "clean-up" or to make his music "nicer." Also, like Ives! The power and vision of Mussorgsky's music is largely preserved in the Ravel orchestration because Ravel tried to use as much of the original manuscript as possible. I've not commented on Ravel's orchestration except to say that it's extraordinary and we're all so very lucky that he took it on as a project.

It is important for us to try to know as much as possible about the music we're given to play. We are compelled to serve that music by presenting comprehensive and apprehensible ideas of how the music means what it means and to present them in a way that satisfies the (hopefully) bright-minded listener.

Suggested Reading
Russ, Michael. Musorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition . New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
Taruskin, Richard. Musorgsky: Eight Essays and an Epilogue . Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1993.

Suggested Listening
Ashkenazy, Vladimir. Pictures at an Exhibition . Both performing the original piano version and conducting his own orchestration with the Philhmarmonia Orchestra. London Decca 414386.

Choir of the Moscow Patriarchate. Russian Chant . KOCH International Classics 9992372992

Emerson, Lake, and Palmer. Pictures at an Exhibition (Live). Rhino Records 72225.

Philip Jones Brass Ensemble. Pictures at an Exhibition . Transcribed for brass by Elgar Howarth in 1979. Now available on Greatest Hits. London Decca 28946/77462. 

Richter, Sviatoslav. Pictures at an Exhibition . Original piano version. Recorded in Moscow, 8 August 1958. Melodiya 29469.

Tallis Scholars. Va: Russian Orthodox Music . Gimell CDGIM002

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