A study score of the spectacular new setting for wind symphony. Simpson's orchestration is the first one for winds based upon the composer's manuscript instead of the flawed 1886 edition of the piano original. Edited by the eminent American composer of wind music, Alfred Reed.
Get to know classical masterpieces": Within this series you will find a simple arrangement for piano of one of the most popular concert works composed by Modest P. Mussorgsky , the cycle of piano pieces Pictures at an Exhibition. With explanatory texts and fully coloured illustrations, the edition is aimed at young and adult pianists. The easily playable arrangements and original pieces provide an ideal introduction to this work.
The inspiration for Mussorgsky’s most famous work came from his friend Victor Hartmann, an artist and architect. When Hartmann died at the early age of 39, Mussorgsky and the rest of the Russian artistic community were stunned, so they organized a memorial exhibit of his work. From that showing came Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, based on the sketches, watercolors, and architectural designs displayed at the exhibition, as well as a few private canvases that Mussorgsky had seen earlier. Each selection in this stunning masterpiece is connected by "Promenade" which moves between 5/4 and 6/4, representing the uneven gait of Mussorgsky walking to the next picture. Titles: * Promenade * 1. The Gnome * Promenade * 2. The Old Castle * Promenade * 3. Tuileries: Children Quarreling at Play * 4. Bydlo * Promenade * 5. Ballet of Unhatched Chickens * 6. Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle * Promenade * 7. The Market Place at Limoges * 8. Catacombae * Lingua Mortua * 9. Hut of the Baba-Yaga * 10. The Great Gate of Kiev
This famous work has had a chequered performance history, and Professor Laurel E. Fay points out that the interpretation of the opera depends on which edition is used. Robert Oldani introduces the "e;Boris problem"e;: Pushkin's play was not an obvious choice for a young composer, since it had been banned for forty years, and it is the Russian people, rather than any single character, who is the protagonist. Alex de Jonge examines its uniquely Russian character and notes the unsettling parallels of the history of old Russia with today. Nigel Osborne's comparison of the Rimsky-Korsakov and Mussorgsky versions highlights their individual qualities.Contents: Looking into 'Boris Godunov', Robert W. Oldani; A Historical Introduction, Nicholas John; The Drama and Music of 'Boris', Laurel E. Fay; Around 'Boris Godunov', Alex de Jonge; Boris: prince or peasant?, Nigel Osborne; Boris Godunov: Russian libretto (transliterated), Modest Mussorgsky; Boris Godunov: English translation by David Lloyd-Jones
In 1874 Mussorgsky wrote his famous piano cycle inspired by an exhibition of pictures by his friend Viktor Hartmann. The resources of musical realism are used to describe the ten pictures in great detail; the interposed "Promenades" then reflect the subjective impressions and feelings of the visitor looking at the pictures. This edition is based on Mussorgsky's original score, with the addition of a few markings apparently overlooked by the composer, inserted in brackets. Fingerings have been added, together with the original comments on individual pieces from the first edition. These comments by the art critic Vladimir Stassov, the organiser of the exhibition, outline the "programmatic" nature of the musical composition. A major work in the piano repertoire!
One of the first Russian tone poems, Night on Bald Mountain had its genesis in the late 1850s when Mussorgsky started sketches for a projected opera: St. John's Eve (1858), later changed to The Witch (1860) - based upon a scenario about a witches' sabbath on St. John's Eve. These were abandonded by the early 1860s but Mussorgsky contemplated a tone poem using the material featuring piano and orchestra along the lines of Liszt's Totentanz. The work was finally completed on St. John's Eve (June 23) of 1867 as an orchestral tone poem entited St. John's Eve on the Bare Mountain. The symphonic poem was never performed in the composer's lifetime. After rejection for performance, Mussorgsky reworked the material two more times for operatic projects that never materialized. After the composer's death his friend Rimsky-Korsakov prepared a new arrangement based on the last version composed for the opera Sorochintsy Fair which was published in 1886. Rimsky's arrangement became very popular, especially after its use in the 1939 Walt Disney film Fantasia in a very bowldwerized orchestration made by Leopold Stowkowski. Rimsky's setting is the work offered here - in a newly engraved edition by Richard W. Sargeant, Jr. It is now often regarded as more of a fantasy on themes by Mussorgsky composed by Rimsky-Korsakov. IMSLP page Wikipedia article
Mussorgsky's last opera dramatizes the conspiracy of Prince Khovansky against Tsar Peter the Great, and the epic ends with the exile, murder and suicide of all the power groups of old Russia. When Musorgsky died in 1881, it was unfinished, and Rimsky-Korsakov completed it; Ravel and Stravinsky made another version for Diaghilev in 1911; in 1959 Shostakovich went back to the original and rediscovered a masterpiece. Caryl Emerson offers a provocative reading of Mussorgsky's achievement. Gerard McBurney relates the non-European inspiration in the score to Mussorgsky's conception of history, while Rosamund Bartlett describes the cultural impetus for his historical vision.Contents: Apocalypse Then, Now, and (for Us) Never: Reflections on Musorgsky's Other Historical Opera, Caryl Emerson; Musorgsky's Music of Time, Gerard McBurney; 'Khovanshchina' in Context, Rosamund Bartlett; Khovanshchina: Libretto by Modest Musorgsky; The Khovansky Affair: English translation by Carol Borah Palca.
Based on the autograph manuscript and earliest editions, editor Nancy Bricard addresses the sources and discrepancies between the various publications of Moussorgsky's most important contribution to piano literature---Pictures at an Exhibition. This well-researched edition describes the close relationship between the composer and Russian artist Victor Hartmann, whose paintings and sketches inspired the creation of this collection of musical works. Bricard offers fascinating insight into the composer's compositional process by including music passages in her footnotes that Moussorgsky had discarded from the autograph. Also discussed are matters of tempo, fingering, pedaling and interpretation, as well as background on the historical, cultural and social environment that influenced the composer's music.
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