Duo Amie | Great Gate of Kiev -Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. Arr. for cello & piano by Charles Schiff @DuoAmie | Uploaded March 2020 | Updated October 2024, 4 hours ago.
Pictures at An Exhibition (Mussorgsky)
Despite now being his most well-known work, at the time of Mussorgsky’s death, his Pictures at an Exhibition had been neither published nor performed. Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakove finished the manuscript and it was published in 1886. Based on ten drawings/watercolors by his friend Victor Hartmann (many of which have unfortunately been lost), the piece was originally written for piano solo. Ravel arranged the piece for orchestra in 1922. Several additional arrangements for various instruments have also been created, including this one for cello and piano by Charles Schiff.
Hartmann’s original watercolor for Great Gate of Kiev did survive. Hartmann considered this painting his best work. He created it for the Czar Alexander the II’s competition for designs for a gateway to be erected in Kiev to commemorate the Czar’s escape from assassination in St. Petersburg in 1886. Hartmann won the competition, however the project was subsequently canceled. The inscription on the central arch reads “Blessed he that cometh in the name of the Lord”. Mussorgsky captures the grand majesty of the structure, using the promenade theme at the opening of the movement. The middle softer sections are based on a Russian Orthodox baptismal hymn. There is also the suggestion of church bells in the interlude within the middle of the movement, followed again by the main theme, and building to a sweeping finale full of grandeur.
Duo Amie Presents Melodic Canvases
Julie Reimann, Cello
Ellyses Kuan, Piano
Recorded on November 3, 2018 at Longyear Museum
Pictures at An Exhibition (Mussorgsky)
Despite now being his most well-known work, at the time of Mussorgsky’s death, his Pictures at an Exhibition had been neither published nor performed. Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakove finished the manuscript and it was published in 1886. Based on ten drawings/watercolors by his friend Victor Hartmann (many of which have unfortunately been lost), the piece was originally written for piano solo. Ravel arranged the piece for orchestra in 1922. Several additional arrangements for various instruments have also been created, including this one for cello and piano by Charles Schiff.
Hartmann’s original watercolor for Great Gate of Kiev did survive. Hartmann considered this painting his best work. He created it for the Czar Alexander the II’s competition for designs for a gateway to be erected in Kiev to commemorate the Czar’s escape from assassination in St. Petersburg in 1886. Hartmann won the competition, however the project was subsequently canceled. The inscription on the central arch reads “Blessed he that cometh in the name of the Lord”. Mussorgsky captures the grand majesty of the structure, using the promenade theme at the opening of the movement. The middle softer sections are based on a Russian Orthodox baptismal hymn. There is also the suggestion of church bells in the interlude within the middle of the movement, followed again by the main theme, and building to a sweeping finale full of grandeur.
Duo Amie Presents Melodic Canvases
Julie Reimann, Cello
Ellyses Kuan, Piano
Recorded on November 3, 2018 at Longyear Museum
