So I was listening to some Mussorgsky for the first time ever today…and wow…his stuff is incredible!! :eek:
Hopefully there are a few Mussorgsky experts on here to answer a few questions I have. First off, admittedly, I got his songs of Kazaa. There were only two pieces that I could find (well, there were lots of files available, but they were all of the same two pieces). They were “Pictures at an Exhibition” and “The Great Gate at Kiev”. Upon listening to the Great Gate of Kiev, I realized that its just a subset (sorry, I don’t know the proper musical term) of Pictures at an Exhibition. Now, I also have no idea if the Pictures at an Exhibition mp3 I have is actually the entire piece or just a larger piece.
Anyway, what I’m getting at here is that I’d like to see a discography of Mussorgsky’s and in particular, some details on “Pictures”, as this is one kickass piece.
I know jack about Mussorsky, except that Night On Bald Mountain (which I know is not its formal name, but I don’t know what is) is IMO the most rockingest piece of classical music ever. I adore it.
Pictures at an Exhibition was written after Mussorgsky went to an art showing of a friend of his who had died. Each bit in the piece represents a different painting (Great Gate of Kiev being the end of the whole piece). He wrote it as a piano solo piece, but Maurice Ravel arranged it for orchestra, which now is probably the more ‘commercially’ well known version of the music.
Also, Emerson, Lake, and Palmer do a very cool rendition of various parts on their album of the same name.
If you like Mussorgsky, you’ll have to see the Disney animated feature Fantasia (1940) for an unforgettable visual rendition of Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain.
Isn’t Baba Yaga based on a Russian folk tale about a witch who lived in a hut perched on giant chicken legs? I thought she went around and kidnapped children.
Trigonal Planar you might enjoy this story…when I was a child my parents didn’t own enough furniture to fill both the living and family room, so the family room was empty except for the stereo, perched on a desk. Every Halloween my father would turn off all the lights, put on “Bald Mountain”, tell the story of the song in exquisite detail, and then offer us some outrageous sum (like a $1.00) to go into the family room and turn on the lights. Of course, no one ever did!
Much of “Pictures at an Exhibition” was used as background music for “The Smurfs” Saturday morning TV show in the '80s. Just thought I’d toss that out there.
Mussorgsky is wonderful. I don’t care as much for Ravel’s arrangement for orchestra and it seems that’s the only way it gets performed. I prefer the solo piano much more.
All those crazy Russians! Wonderful!
Try Prokofiev (I love the Scythian Suite, very energetic, frantic), Shostakovich, Rachmaninnov (forgive my spelling, my CD’s are packed as I’m MOOOVING!)
I agree with Eonwe, ELP is where I cut my teeth on looking for classical piano works. (ELP did a bit of Prokofiev as well)
I found another rare gem one day about 15 or more years ago. Anrzej Panufnik’s “Sinfonia Sacra”. This man, a Polish composer/conductor, used percussion the way Palmer of ELP played. Fascinating to hear percussion being played by a bunch seamlessly enough to sound like one person.
ELP would love it.
I’m sad to read looking up about him for this post he died not too many years after I bought some of his work.
I don’t know about Rachmanninov and Rimsky-Korsokov – I haven’t heard much by the two, but what I have heard struck me as rather dull (ie, just a bunch of violin/piano twiddling - which isn’t my style).
I’ve got some Shostakovich and its pretty good. Prokofiev though, is absolutely spectacular. His Alexander Nevsky score (and in particular, “Arise, People of Russia”) is incredible.
Scheherazade is precisely the piece is was referring too! Okay, I guess I was wrong about the piano twiddling (I know nothing about music, instruments etc.), but its just a very “generic” sounding piece with your usual horns and violins just sort of pacing along. I like the big “powerful” pieces and Scheherazade is definitely not a big powerful orchestral piece. I can spend the day humming and tapping away to Night on Bald Mountain (dooo do do do do doo doooo do do doooo do do dooo) but Scherazade??? No way.
We can’t be talking about the same piece of music! *Schehrezade * contains some massive, melodic, swelling orchestral movements, shimmering with orchestral coloration.
Oh Yeah! Schehrezade is the bomb! I really hope our orchestra plays it someday! Right now we’re doing Holst’s Planets, and of course Mars is a heart-stopper! I love that I’m pregnant while we’re playing this, I keep thinking the twins have got to be rockin’ in there!
Tchaikovsky is another easy-to-love worth checking out, both The 1812 Overture and Capriccio Italien rule (the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra recording, with Erich Kunzel, is a wonderful version IMHO!).
Hmm… I’m going to stay civil here and just say I feel sorry for you, that you need your music to be “powerful” and have a good singable melody, which I think Scheherazade has. There’s nothing generic about the music telling the story of “1001 Nights,” with the solo violin acting as the storyteller.
So instead of wasting bandwidth trying to convince you that music doesn’t have to hold you down and force its meaning down your throat, I’ll direct you to two threads where we try to convince Mort Furd to expand his horizons.
