“His desire was to relate his art as closely as possible to life, especially that of the Russian masses, to nourish it on events and to employ it as a means for communicating human experience.” These words, from the indispensable Grove Concise Dictionary of Music, describe the artistic aims of Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky (1839-1881). At times a loner and a collaborator, an artist and a bureaucrat, he emerged from a military upbringing to become a member of “The Five”, a group of Russian composers dedicated to promoting distinctly Russian music. He died at age 42 after losing a lifelong battle with alcoholism. He left behind many unfinished work which were completed (and somewhat recomposed) by his friend Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov. His most enduring contributions to the musical canon include the opera Boris Godunov, the piano cycle Pictures at an Exhibition, and the symphonic poem Night on Bald Mountain.
Mussorgsky on Wikipedia, Britannica, and Classics for Kids.
Written in 1874, Pictures at an Exhibition is a program piece that imagines a person looking a series of paintings at an exhibit in an art gallery. It is a recreation of a memorial exhibition given in 1873 of the works of Russian artist Viktor Hartmann, a close friend of Mussorgsky’s who had died unexpectedly 3 years prior at age 39. Each movement of the suite presents a musical depiction of one of Hartmann’s works. These are often separated by the “Promenade” theme, which depicts the viewer walking between paintings.
The Wikipedia article on Pictures covers all the bases, including mention of the several arrangements that exist and copies of most of the original pictures that inspired Mussorgsky. Highly recommended!
Here is the piano original:
The most famous arrangement of this is Maurice Ravel’s 1922 full orchestra version, performed here by Georg Solti and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra:
There are SO MANY band versions of this that it would be impossible list them all. We will start with Paul Lavender, who has a band arrangement based on Ravel’s orchestration:
Merlin Patterson chose to take the piano original as his starting point, resulting in some starkly different colors from Ravel. Even on the first note, the trumpet section is joined by chimes!
There is also a young band version of the suite, arranged by Jim Curnow. It hits all of the greatest spots and does it quite well!
In an attempt to show some swath of the abundance of available arrangements, here is J.W. Pepper’s search page for Pictures. They list 35 complete or partial arrangements.