CD reviews: Mussorgsky – Pictures At An Exhibition -

A whole generation was introduced to Russian composer Mussorgsky’s Pictures At An Exhibition via power trio Emerson Lake & Palmer’s 1971 “adaptation”, which added lyrics, and organ/synthesiser duels. The real thing is rendered here beautifully and expertly by the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra (along with two other Mussorgsky pieces) and Telarc’s recording is spectacularly rich and reverberant. [The disc I reviewed was a hybrid SACD, which I heard on my two-channel SACD player. I'm sure the stereo and multi-channel mixes are similarly brilliant]. Mussorgsky apparently composed Pictures At An Exhibition as a way of recovering from the grief of losing one of his best friends, an artist. So he composed it as a series of linked pieces viewing different pictures. Some might accuse it of being pompous and conservative, and to some degree, they’d be right. But that doesn’t take one iota of the power away from the composition, in the same way that Wagner’s infamous anti-semitism hardly deflects the genius of his best work.

From: Telarc/Elite
Genre: Classical
Music: 4
Sound: 5

GARY STEEL

PS, STOP PRESS! Winner of SURROUND SOUND ALBUM at the 2009 Grammies!

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