Mussorgsky Bilder Einer Ausstellung

• Amazon Sales Rank: #361193 in Music
• Released on: 2008-02-26
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: .21 pounds

Mussorgsky Bilder Einer Ausstellung 2 Pic

Mussorgsky Bilder Einer Ausstellung 2 Photo

Mussorgsky Bilder Einer Ausstellung 2 Photo

Mussorgsky Bilder Einer Ausstellung 2 Pic

Mussorgsky Bilder Einer Ausstellung 2 Image

Mussorgsky Bilder Einer Ausstellung 2 Picture

12 of 15 people found the following review helpful.
skillfully un-Russian
By Kostas A. Lavdas
This is a performance that does more justice to Ravel’s orchestral arrangement than the Russian underneath. Mussorgsky’s work, originally composed for piano and dedicated to his friend, the artist Viktor Hartmann, has become such a showcase of orchestral brilliance in Ravel’s celebrated version that one tends to forget the musical ideas and the intended atmosphere. At the same time, Pictures at an Exhibition is a work boasting so many good recordings that one has difficulty deciding which to recommend. Rattle’s reading, alert and sophisticated, results in some of the suite’s movements being played with both skill and sensitivity, as in the wonderful vecchio castello.

Borodin’s emblematic Second symphony gets a reading which is more in touch with the score’s spirit. But in this case it is the orchestra’s sound and playing that appear a bit too pop and light for the occasion. In recent years, the Berlin Philharmonic has become just one among today’s great orchestras: leaner textures, technical brilliance and no relation to the Berlin sound forged by Karajan and so skilfully transformed by Abbado. Apart from being fashionable today, this sound serves them well in some instances (their recent Mahler as well as their Debussy recordings are stellar), but it makes it less easy to recognise an ensemble once distinguished by characteristic sound and playing (too characteristic for some).

To sum up: Predictably, given the maestro-orchestra combination, this is an excellent disc. And the coupling is fine, not to mention a sleek account of the Polovtsian Dances coming as a bonus! But I would still rather recommend Giulini’s Chicago Symphony recording for the orchestral version of the Pictures (DG) and – despite its technical imperfections – Kubelik’s heartfelt Vienna Philharmonic recording for Borodin’s Second (EMI).

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