• The material on the second disc was recorded at the Lyceum Theatre
  Lyceum Theatre
  - United Kingdom :* Lyceum Theatre, London, a 2,000-seat West End theatre located in the City of Westminster* Lyceum Theatre , an Edwardian period Grade II listed building and theatre* Lyceum Theatre , a 1068-seat theatre in the City of Sheffield...
  
   in December of 1970.

Personnel

• Keith Emerson
  Keith Emerson
  Keith Noel Emerson is an English keyboard player and composer. Formerly a member of the Keith Emerson Trio, John Brown's Bodies, The T-Bones, V.I.P.s, P.P. Arnold's backing band, and The Nice , he was a founder of Emerson, Lake & Palmer , one of the early supergroups, in 1970...
  
   - Pipe Organ
  Pipe organ
  The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air through pipes selected via a keyboard. Because each organ pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ranks, each of which has a common timbre and volume throughout the keyboard compass...
  
  , Hammond
  Hammond organ
  The Hammond organ is an electric organ invented by Laurens Hammond in 1934 and manufactured by the Hammond Organ Company. While the Hammond organ was originally sold to churches as a lower-cost alternative to the wind-driven pipe organ, in the 1960s and 1970s it became a standard keyboard...
  
   C3 and L100 Organs, Moog Modular Synthesizer
  Moog synthesizer
  Moog synthesizer may refer to any number of analog synthesizers designed by Dr. Robert Moog or manufactured by Moog Music, and is commonly used as a generic term for older-generation analog music synthesizers. The Moog company pioneered the commercial manufacture of modular voltage-controlled...
  
  , Ribbon controller, Clavinet
  Clavinet
  A Clavinet is an electrically amplified keyboard instrument manufactured by the Hohner company. It is essentially an electronically amplified clavichord, analogous to an electric guitar. Its distinctive bright staccato sound has appeared particularly in funk, disco, rock, and reggae songs.Various...
  
  
• Greg Lake
  Greg Lake
  Gregory Stuart "Greg" Lake is an English musician, songwriter and producer, best known as a vocalist and bassist of King Crimson, and the bassist, guitarist, vocalist, and lyricist of Emerson, Lake & Palmer.-1960s: King Crimson:...
  
   - bass
  Bass guitar
  The bass guitar is a stringed instrument played primarily with the fingers or thumb , or by using a pick....
  
  , acoustic guitar
  Acoustic guitar
  An acoustic guitar is a guitar that uses only an acoustic sound board. The air in this cavity resonates with the vibrational modes of the string and at low frequencies, which depend on the size of the box, the chamber acts like a Helmholtz resonator, increasing or decreasing the volume of the sound...
  
  , Vocals
  Singing
  Singing is the act of producing musical sounds with the voice, and augments regular speech by the use of both tonality and rhythm. One who sings is called a singer or vocalist. Singers perform music known as songs that can be sung either with or without accompaniment by musical instruments...
  
  
• Carl Palmer
  Carl Palmer
  Carl Frederick Kendall Palmer is an English drummer and percussionist. He is credited as one of the most respected rock drummers to emerge from the 1960s...
  
   - percussion
  Percussion instrument
  A percussion instrument is any object which produces a sound when hit with an implement or when it is shaken, rubbed, scraped, or otherwise acted upon in a way that sets the object into vibration...
  
  , drums
  Drum kit
  A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
  
  

Production

• Producer: Greg Lake
• Engineer: Eddie Offord
  Eddie Offord
  Eddy Offord is a former record producer and recording engineer, who worked on some of the most famous progressive rock albums of the 1970s, often at London's Advision Studios. He is especially well known for his work with the groups Emerson, Lake & Palmer and Yes. ELP wrote a tribute to Offord with...
  
  
• Remastering: Joseph M. Palmaccio
  Joseph M. Palmaccio
  Joseph M. Palmaccio is an American mastering engineer born in rural South Carolina.Palmaccio has been nominated for five Grammy Awards and has won 3 in the Best Historical Album category for mastering...
  
  
• Arrangers: Keith Emerson, Greg Lake
• Cover design: William Neal
• Cover painting: William Neal
• Artwork: William Neal
• Photography: Nigel Marlow, Keith Morris
• Lyrics: Greg Lake, Richard Fraser
  Richard Fraser
  Richard Fraser was a lyricist for the British progressive rock band Emerson, Lake & Palmer .He is notable for receiving credit for their 1970 debut album's third track, the hit "Knife Edge" and for his lyrical contributions to Pictures at an Exhibition...
  
  

The album begins with the announcement "And now we're going to give you ... Pictures at an Exhibition", strangely followed by a great cheer. This seems to imply that Newcastle audiences are Mussorgsky enthusiasts.

Charts

The album reached #3 in the UK album chart in December 1971, only by virtue of the fact that budget-priced albums (of which Pictures at an Exhibition was one), were eligible for inclusion at that time. At the beginning of 1972 another change in the chart rules excluded them again, which meant that Pictures disappeared from the chart from #9 after a run of just 5 weeks.

In the US Billboard album chart it peaked at #10 in early 1972.

Other rock adaptations of Mussorgsky

Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition was also performed in different electronic arrangements by both Isao Tomita

Isao Tomita

, often known simply as Tomita, is a Japanese music composer, regarded as one of the pioneers of electronic music and space music, and as one of the most famous producers of analog synthesizer arrangements...

 and Tangerine Dream

Tangerine Dream

Tangerine Dream is a German electronic music group founded in 1967 by Edgar Froese. The band has undergone many personnel changes over the years, with Froese being the only continuous member...

, and in a heavy metal adaptation by the German band Mekong Delta

Mekong Delta (band)

Mekong Delta is a German progressive/thrash metal band, formed in 1985.-History:The band was founded by a group of German metal musicians with the goal to 'musically outshine' all then-current, independent releases. The line-up and the history of the group was to be "the best kept secret in the...

. The first and third mentioned are more complete versions of the original suite.