Leopold Stokowski's

Leopold Stokowski

Leopold Anthony Stokowski was a British-born, naturalised American orchestral conductor, well known for his free-hand performing style that spurned the traditional baton and for obtaining a characteristically sumptuous sound from many of the great orchestras he conducted.In America, Stokowski...

 orchestration of Pictures at an Exhibition by Modest Mussorgsky

Modest Mussorgsky

Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky was a Russian composer, one of the group known as 'The Five'. He was an innovator of Russian music in the romantic period...

 was completed in 1939 and premiered later that year, on 17 November, by the Philadelphia Orchestra

Philadelphia Orchestra

The Philadelphia Orchestra is a symphony orchestra based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the United States. One of the "Big Five" American orchestras, it was founded in 1900...

. Mussorgsky's original 1874 composition

Pictures at an Exhibition

Pictures at an Exhibition is a suite in ten movements composed for piano by Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky in 1874.The suite is Mussorgsky's most famous piano composition, and has become a showpiece for virtuoso pianists...

 was a suite for piano, however, the piece has gained most of its fame through the many orchestrations

Orchestration

Orchestration is the study or practice of writing music for an orchestra or of adapting for orchestra music composed for another medium...

 of it that have been produced. The most popular of these arrangements was completed in 1922 by French composer Maurice Ravel

Maurice Ravel

Joseph-Maurice Ravel was a French composer known especially for his melodies, orchestral and instrumental textures and effects...

. Stokowski introduced the Ravel orchestration of Pictures to Philadelphia audiences in 1929, but was not fully satisfied with the arrangement, feeling it needed a more Slavic

Slavic peoples

The Slavic people are an Indo-European panethnicity living in Eastern Europe, Southeast Europe, North Asia and Central Asia. The term Slavic represents a broad ethno-linguistic group of people, who speak languages belonging to the Slavic language family and share, to varying degrees, certain...

 sound. His version was finished 10 years later, without much of the French influence he saw in Ravel's. Stokowski omits two movements, "Tuileries" and "Limoges," because he felt they showed too much French influence and had a suspicion they might have been composed by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov was a Russian composer, and a member of the group of composers known as The Five.The Five, also known as The Mighty Handful or The Mighty Coterie, refers to a circle of composers who met in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in the years 1856–1870: Mily Balakirev , César...

, whose 1886 edition was the first published version of Mussorgsky's work.

Movements

I. Promenade

Stokowski's opening "Promenade" is less showy than Ravel's brass fanfare; it is instead mainly given to low strings and woodwinds, creating deep, chorale-like textures. The brass do not enter until near the end.

II. Gnomus

The kaleidoscopic orchestration of this grotesque movement recalls Stokowski's version of Night on Bald Mountain. Muted brasses are featured quite prominently, as is the xylophone. Stokowski's canvas depends more on strange woodwind and brass sounds than Ravel's percussion (including whip).

III. Promenade

A bassoon replaces Ravel's horn in this movement, and alternates with mysterious string tremolos. The end fades into the next section.

IV. The Old Castle

After a desolate opening of bassoon and low strings, the English horn enters with the troubador's song. Muted strings contribute to the dreamy texture, as does the relentless pulse of the timpani.

V. Bydlo

The low strings bear the heavy burden of the ox-cart, with the melody carried by horns and trumpets. The climax is ushered in by an overwhelming percussion crescendo, the melody in the violins and horns and the ox-cart in the timpani. Stokowski follows Mussorgsky's original score here by having the movement start fortissimo, instead of Ravel's pianissimo.

VI. Promenade

The mysterious string tremolos reappear in this section, having the bulk of the melody. Flutes enter at the end, anticipating the next movement.

VII. Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks

Stokowski, like Ravel, uses mainly woodwind textures here; however, the two orchestrations manage to sound completely different. Stokowski's arrangement does not smooth over the dissonances as Ravel's does: it accentuates them. The string tremolos reappear in the middle section, alternating with a squeaking oboe.

VIII. Samuel Goldburg and Schmulye

This is the only of Stokowski's movements that owes much to Ravel. However, it does have some colors of its own: A flute alternates with the muted trumpet in the poor man's plea, and the return of the pompous "rich man" theme uses ominous trombone glissandos to great effect.

IX. Catacombs

Stokowski's heritage as an organist is very apparent in this section, with brass choirs piled on top of one another in gigantic chords. The section contains a number of spooky effects, such as the violins' glissandos and the presence of bass drum and gong.

X. Cum mortis in lingua mortua

The string tremolos return more ominously than ever in this movement, although the orchestration is not as dark as Ravel's. The sentimental second section features a solo violin, with frequent use of portamento.

XI. The Hut on Fowl's Legs (Baba-Yaga)

This movement again shows a conscious difference from Ravel's: The Frenchman's is a pounding, brutal, percussionistic piece, while Stokowski's is more a grotesque scherzo—a danse macabre. The piece opens with the major sevenths being given out in snarls of muted brass. As in "Gnomus," phantasmagoric effects of orchestration flit briefly by in a nightmarish kaleidoscope—grunting strings, snarling brass, shrieking woodwinds. The middle section features Stokowski's most brilliant orchestral touch in the piece—fluttertongued trills and tremolos on the horns and muted trumpets; later the downward chromatic scale is fluttertongued on the muted trombones. Afterward the danse macabre returns, only to blow away into the distance as the next movement enters.

XII. The Great Gate of Kiev

This movement sums up two important characteristics of Stokowki's orchestration: His giant, organlike chords (it actually uses an organ) and his penchant for gong and bell sounds. The organ influence is obvious from the opening brass chorale. In the chorale sections, Stokowski ignores Mussorgsky's marking senza esspresivo (without expression) and gives them to a luscious string choir. Bell sounds enter with the scales that accompany the second occurrence of the "Gate" theme, and gong sounds with the dissonant chiming of the middle section. Unlike Ravel's, Stokowski's quarter note triplets in the penultimate "Gate" statement are audible, played fanfare-like in the brass and timpani. The piece ends with giant chords for organ and orchestra and a huge smash on the gong.