What a fabulous piece of music and a fabulous piece of orchestration by Ravel ! I agree with the assessment of the version with The Chicago Symphony Orchestra with Kubelik conducting. it is a great MONO recording on the Mercury label. I performed it many times as an orchestral musician. I even had the privilege to perform it with Leopold Stokowski in HIS orchestration of the piece. It was good, but nowhere near as good as Ravel's original version. One of the great features of the CSO/Kubelik recording is the "Bydlo" movement. It is meant to depict a slow-moving 2 wheeled cart pulled by oxen. The solo voice is scored for solo tuba. It is supposed to sound slow and laboured. Kubelik called upon the CSO's superb tuba soloist, Arnold Jacobs to perform it on a smaller than usual tuba in the key of "F" with great effect ! Many times today, it is performed on a "tenor tuba" or euphonium to make it far easier to perform but it loses the heavy, laboured character that was originally intended. I studied with Mr. Jacobs for a bit and he thought it was just another day on the job ! What an orchestra !!
Pictures at an Exhibition
For someone who studied music in college, I somehow managed to miss Moussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition until now. I admit I’m not a fan of large-scale orchestral works, so I avoided it not knowing that it was originally written for solo piano. I picked up both CD and vinyl copies of the solo piano version and I think it is fabulous. A wonderful mix of simplicity and virtuosity and I can’t recommend it highly enough. I’m definitely tempted to pick up another version.
Plese let me know if you are aware of any outstanding performances of this piece. Thanks