Rod's Ramblings
A podcast reminiscing about cultural events and how they affected this sixty something. Join me as we travel on a nostalgic journey through the cultural events that have shaped our lives. From classical composers, iconic music moments, rock stars and unforgettable TV shows. Let’s reminisce about how these events have influenced us all. Whether you’re a fellow baby boomer or just love a good story, Rod’s Ramblings offers a heartfelt, informative and entertaining look at the stories behind these great events. Cheers, Rod.
Rod's Ramblings
Harmonious Histories - Mussorgsky's Masterpiece and the Muse Behind It
Unlock the secrets behind Modest Mussorgsky's transformative masterpiece, "Pictures at an Exhibition," and traverse a compelling narrative that intertwines music, art, and Russian cultural heritage. We'll guide you through the imaginative soundscapes of each movement, offering vivid stories and hidden meanings, while also revealing how Maurice Ravel and others have colorfully reimagined Mussorgsky's work. Our exploration is not just an auditory feast but a journey into the intriguing relationship between Mussorgsky and his muse, Victor Hartmann, whose untimely death ignited this artistic tribute. Enjoy a rich tapestry of insights, from the eerie whispers of "Gnomus" to the triumphant echoes of the "Great Gate of Kiev."
Step into the life of Mussorgsky himself, a figure whose genius was matched by his tumultuous personal struggles. From his auspicious beginnings in Korovo through his notable yet tragic tenure as a member of the Mighty Five, Mussorgsky's life was a symphony of triumph and turmoil. Discover the weight of societal changes, like the emancipation of the serfs, that strained his family and fueled his artistic passion but also his personal decline. Our discussion delves into his relationships, including the enigmatic bond with Tchaikovsky, and explores the unfinished compositions salvaged by devoted friends. Through our narrative, gain a deeper understanding of the man whose legacy continues to resonate in the world of music today.
Hello there and welcome to Rod's Ramblings, a podcast reminiscing about cultural events and how they've affected this 60-something. This latest episode in my discovery of classical music comes about as a result of a message that I received from my good friend, Chris comes about as a result of a message that I received from my good friend Chri
Rod:After the it's Only Baroque and Roll episode. She texted me saying that she'd studied Modest Mazurki'Ms Pictures at an Exhibition at school and it had always stuck with her, and wondered if I'd like to consider it for a future episode. Well, chris, thanks for your suggestion and here it is. I've broken the episode down into three parts, the first being the story behind the pictures at an exhibition, then a section on Modis Mazursky himself and finally, as we're talking about Russian composers, I'll finish with a little bit about the association between the Mighty Five and Tchaikovsky. As usual, I'll also include some great music. Modis Mazursky was a towering figure in 19th century Russian music and is famously known for being a member of the Mighty Five. His musical compositions include the opera Boris Gudunov, the orchestral piece Night on Bald Mountain and the piano sPictures. Pictures at an Exhibition. It's Pictures at an Exhibition that I'd like to talk about now. So Pictures at an Exhibition is a suite of piano music composed by the Russian composer Modis Mazursky between the 2nd and the 22nd of June 1874. It's based on a series of drawings and watercolour paintings made by Mazursky's friend, the architect and artist Victor Hartmann, who had suffered an aneurysm and died suddenly the previous year. The suite was written as a tribute to his good friend and is intended to represent a tour around a gallery exhibiting Hartmann's works. There are 10 movements in all, each representing one of the drawings or paintings, along with a piece entitled Promenade, which represents the walk that the viewer takes from one exhibit to the next. The Promenade piece is repeated a number of times, varying in time, signature and mood, to reflect the speed that the viewer travels between the exhibits and the emotion that he or she feels along the way.
Rod:Sadly, over time, and possibly due to a little bit of neglect, some of the drawings and paintings have been lost, damaged or destroyed, but thankfully the Russian art and music critic,V Vladimir Stasov, describes each of them in his memoirs. The first painting is called Gnomus, or the Gnome. This is described by Stasov as a sketch of a small gnome with large teeth and crooked legs not exactly the garden gnome with a fishing rod that we're all familiar with today. The second painting is called the Old Castle and depicts a troubadour performing in front of a medieval castle Tuileries. Children's Quarrel After the Games, is the third painting and shows a group of children along with their nurses playing in the gardens of the Tuileries near the Louvre in Paris. Next comes Cattle showing a large oxen drawn cart on enormous wheels. The fifth exhibit, ballet of Unhatched Chicks, was based on a series of sketches of dancers in costumes which were to be used in the ballet Trilby staged by the Imperial Bolshoi Ballet. This was the last piece to be choreographed by the influential ballet master Marius Petipa.
Rod:Sixth on the trip around the gallery is Samuel Goldenberg and Schmoyl, which are paintings of two Jewish gentlemen. One is a head and shoulders portrait and the other is that of a man seated. Both paintings were given to Mussorgsky by Hartmann as a gift. Painting number seven is called L' the Market, which depicts French women appearing to violently quarrel in the street. Number eight is Catacombs showing the silhouette of what looks like a workman and two top-hatted gentlemen in a dimly lit Roman tomb. The ninth painting, the Hut on Hen's Legs of Baba Yaga, sounds like something from a George Lucas Star Wars movie, but is in actual fact, a clock designed in the popular Russian style of the time. Slavic folk stories often referred to the witch Abba Yaga, who used a large hut with giant chicken legs to travel around. The final exhibit, the Bogota gates, was based on a design for a monumental set of gates to be built at Kiev to commemorate Tsar Alexander the second's narrow escape from an assassination attempt on the 4th of April 1866. The gates would have been built in the ancient Russian style, with a rounded dome shaped like a Slavonic helmet. Hartman thought his design was the best work he'd ever done and, despite winning the national competition, plans to build the structure were later cancelled.
Rod:If you'd like to see the paintings, they can be found, like most things, on the internet. If you search for images of Victor Hartmann paintings, a number of them are displayed. It's well worth the effort. Moving on to the music, we all like a bit of trivia, don't we? So here's a collection of facts that you can use next time you're at a party and are stuck for a conversation Icebreaker, the first musician to arrange pictures at an exhibition for orchestra was the Russian composer and conductor, mikhail Tushmalov, who was a student of Rumsky-Korsakov. His version, which was first published in 1891, only refers to seven of the ten pictures. The gnome, tuileries and cattle are all omitted and only the last promenade is played. The next orchestration was undertaken by the British conductor Henry Wood in 1915. For those vinyl enthusiasts out there, in 1920 a few sections of Wood's arrangements were recorded on 78 rpm records. The first person to orchestrate the piece in its entirety was the Slovenian born conductor, conductor and violinist Leo Funtech, who finished his version in 1922 whilst living and working in Finland, and the most recorded and performed version is that of Maurice Ravel, which was produced in 1922. The piano suite has also inspired homages in a broad range of musical styles. An electronic music adaption was recorded by Isayo Tomita, the Japanese composer, in 1975. A heavy metal arrangement of the entire suite was released by German thrash metal band Mekong Delta in 1991. In 2003, the yes guitarist, trevor Rabin, released an electric guitar adaptation of the Promenade for the album Big Generator and later included it on his solo album 90124. The Michael Jackson song His Story samples a short section of the Great Gate of Kiev with a longer part featured during the world tour. Five-minute countdown before the Michael Jackson 2040 spaceship departs.
Rod:The version that I was familiar with prior to Chris's message was the Emerson, lake and Palmer live album, recorded at Newcastle City Hall on the 26th of March 1971 and released in November of that year. Apparently, keith Emerson had attended an orchestral performance of the piece several years earlier and was so impressed that he bought a copy of the score and suggested to Greg Lake and Carl Palmer that they should adopt it as part of their live set. His bandmates agreed to his suggestion, as long as they could adapt it and contribute new sections to the arrangement. They did so and went on to regularly perform it from their debut in August 1970 right up until their final concert in 2019. Prior to the Newcastle show, the band had recorded and filmed a live show at the Lyceum Theatre in London on 9 December 1970, planning to release the film along with an album in August of the following year. However, the picture quality, editing and audio was disappointing, with Palmer describing the film as being shocking and lacking in any contemporary filming technique. He said that the fact that Eddie offered the engineer on many of their albums wasn't there to control the sound had contributed to its poor quality. They subsequently made the decision to abandon this and record another show at Newcastle City Hall.
Rod:Emerson said that, in addition to their popularity in the North East, one of the reasons why the venue was chosen was his hope that he'd be allowed to play the Harrison and Harrison pipe organ which had been installed at the venue in 1928. His wish was granted, but he had guitarist,T, , T Trevor revor the musicians union that he wouldn't stick knives into the organs keyboard, which he had done as part of his act since his days in the nice. The organ keyboard is quite a height above stage level, at the top of a step terrace which was typically used for choral performances. On the album, palmer performs a drum roll connecting promomenade to the following section.
Rod:In order to give Emerson time to return to his keyboards, the band's arrangement of the suite uses only four of the ten parts in Mussorgsky's suite, along with the linking Promenade sections. The suite was performed Apparently, K K eith one continuous piece with new group written sections linking Mussorgsky's original themes. With new group written sections linking Mussorgsky's original themes. The new group written sections are the Sage, which is played by Lake on acoustic guitar in the style of a medieval mini-sang, which was a type of lyric and songwriting that flourished in Germany and Austria in the middle high German period from the 12th to the 14th century. It acts as a romantic prelude to the original.
Rod:The Old Castle Blues Variation is a 12-bar blues led by Emerson's Hammond organ, borrowing themes from the Old Castle and those that Emerson had previously performed with the Nice on their version of my Back Pages. The penultimate section written by the band is the Curse of Baba Yaga, on which Lake adapts a section of Mussorgsky's music on his fuzz wah-wah bass. Although the Great Gates of Kiev was part of the original composition on the original piece on the album vocals by Lake have been added and the piece ends with an extended feedback-ridden climax steep featuring Emerson dragging his almond organ across the stage. The the album,Palmer a concert's encore, nut Rocker, which is a rock adaptation of Tchaikovsky's the Nutcracker, originally arranged by Kim Foley and recorded by B Bumble and the Stingers in 1962. If you watch the film on YouTube, you can see three friends really enjoying themselves. The album was very successful, reaching number three on the UK album charts and number 10 on the US Billboard 200. In 2001 it was reissued as a remastered edition and included a studio version of the piece recorded in 1993.
Rod:When I listened to the Emerson Lake and Palmer version back in the 70s. I thought that was great, but listening to the Mussorgsky version as a result of doing this research, I'm not really sure which one I prefer the most. You have a listen yourselves and let me know what you think. Before we move on to Modis Mussorgsky's backstory, this is a good time to play a piece of music. For this episode, I've chosen a couple of pieces by Helmut Schenker. Helmut is a music producer and composer well known for his ability to blend classical elements with modern ambient sounds. The first piece is called Maiden Voyage. I hope you enjoy it. No-transcript.
Rod:His story begins on the 21st March 1839 in the village of Korovo, approximately 250 miles south of St Petersburg, russia. His parents were wealthy landowners that had links with Rurik, the legendary 9th century founder of the Russian state. He demonstrated a love of music early in his childhood and by the age of 10 he was regularly playing works by Franz Liszt to entertain his friends. He went to the German language school St Peter's in St Petersburg and studied piano with the famous Russian musician Anton Girk. The family had a tradition of military service and in 1852, aged just 13, he joined the cadet school of the Guards in St Petersburg along with his brother. His skills at the piano made him very popular with his fellow cadets and went on to receive a commission with the Priobrozensky Regiment, the foremost regiment of the Russian Imperial Guard. Despite his successful time in the military, he is best known as an innovator of Russian music in the Romantic period, attempting to achieve a unique musical identity. Many of his compositions were inspired by Russian folklore and other national themes, in addition to pictures at an exhibition.
Rod:Two of the most famous pieces that Mussorgsky composed were the opera Boris Godunov and Night on Bald Mountain. Boris Godunov was based on the Russian Tsar of the same name. Mussorgsky's first draft was rejected by the Mariinsky opera on the basis that it was too dark and crude, so our composer edited it and came up with a less crude version. The opera has since been revised a number of times version. The opera has since been revised a number of times, initially by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov in 1896 and 1898, and more recently by Shostakovich, who made two versions, one for film and one for the stage. Night on Bald Mountain is a musical tone poem based on the theme of a gathering of witches taking place on the mountain on St John's Eve, which was the Slavic equivalent of the summer solstice. This famously enjoyed broad popular recognition when it was featured in Walt Disney's Fantasia, the music that is not the gathering of the witches.
Rod:As stated earlier, mussorgsky was a member of the Mighty Five. This consisted of five composers of the Mighty Five. This consisted of five composers Miley Balarakirev, cesar Cui Modis, mizursky, nikolai Rumsky-Korsakov and Alexander Borodin, who collaborated together between 1856 and 1870 to develop a distinct national style of music. Spurred on by Russian nationalist ideas, the Five sought to capture elements of rural Russian life, to build national pride and to prevent Western ideals from seeping into their culture. The fact that they all had additional careers outside of music and were working class only bolstered their popularity. Borodin was a chemist, couille was an army engineer, rimsky-korsakov a naval engineer, and Mazursky was a member of the prestigious Imperial Guard. They were also known as the Mighty Handful, to give us an idea of how they got to be known by that name, in his memoirs Rimsky-Korsakov made the following comments the Circle had little respect for Mendelssohn.
Rod:Mozart and Haydn were considered out of date and naive. Johann Sebastian Bach was held to be petrified. Chopin was likened by Balakirev to a nervous society. Lady Liszt was comparatively unknown and little was said of Wagner. Despite this criticism of their musical peers, they went on to influence or teach many of the great Russian composers that we are familiar with today, such as Sergei Prokofiev, igor Stravinsky, dmitry Shostakovich, maurice Ravel and Claude Debussy.
Rod:Mussorgsky's relationship with the other members of the Mighty Five began to deteriorate and their musical collaborations became more and more infrequent. Mussorgsky became bitter and wrote to Vladimir Stasov, a Russian art and music critic, saying the Mighty Handful has degenerated into a bunch of soulless traitors. As he drifted away from his friends, he began to rely more and more on alcohol and experience moments of madness. His struggles with the bottle had begun when he was at the cadet school, which had a dubious reputation regarding the way it treated its recruits. The school's director, general Sutkoff, was notorious for encouraging the cadets to drink heavily. A former student, nikolai Kompanyesky, stated that Sutkoff was proud when a cadet returned from leave drunk with champagne.
Rod:His personal situation wasn't helped when, in 1861, the Russian emancipation of the serfs took place. Emancipation of the serfs took place During this time. Emperor Alexander II abolished serfdom, giving 23 million people the freedom to marry without having to gain permission to own property and to own a business. Although this was good news for the 23 million serfs. It was bad news for Mussorgsky and his family. The composer had to go back to Kurovo and help out on the family farm. The act resulted in the family losing half of its estate and, despite Mussorgsky's efforts, heading towards impoverishment.
Rod:To add to the difficulties controlling his alcoholic intake, it was considered the norm for talented anti-establishment members of his generation to indulge to excess. It's alleged that at the height of his fame, mussorgsky spent many days and nights in a St Petersburg tavern of ill repute called the Mali Yaroslavitz. I wonder if there's a blue plaque on the wall. In the years that followed, mussorgsky's health went into decline. He was increasingly unable to resist drinking, and a succession of deaths amongst his closest associates caused him great pain. At times, his alcoholism would seem to be kept in check, although the decline couldn't be stopped, and in 1880 he was finally dismissed from his job.
Rod:At this stage, mussorgsky had been working on two pieces Kovanchishina and the Fair at Sorochitsi. Aware of this lack of cash and his deteriorating state of health, a group of friends organised a stipend to raise finance in the hope that working on them would improve his state of mind and have a positive effect on his health. Sadly, despite their efforts, neither work was completed and in early 1881, a desperate Mussorgsky declared to a friend that there was nothing left but begging After suffering four seizures in rapid succession. His friends arranged for him to be given a comfortable room in a nearby hospital. Although this had an initial positive effect, he again deteriorated and just a week after celebrating his 42nd birthday he died of a heart condition brought on by chronic alcoholism. He was interred at the Tikvin Cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Monastery in St Petersburg. No-transcript.
Rod:One of the most famous Russian composers, peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, didn't get on with them at all. They held differences of opinion about how Russian classical music should be developed. Tchaikovsky had been trained at the St Petersburg Conservatoire and although he used folk songs in some of his works, he believed that Russian classical music should be composed based on the Western practices of composition, tonality and tonal progression. He wanted to write professional compositions of such quality that they would stand up to Western scrutiny and therefore transcend national barriers, yet remain distinctively Russian in melody, rhythm and other compositional characteristics. The Five, on the other hand, wanted to produce a specifically Russian kind of classical music, rather than one that imitated older European music or relied on European style conservatoire training. Although none of them were academically trained in composition, they developed styles known as tonal mutuability, heterophony, parallel fifths and the Russian submediant. If there's anyone out there that can explain to me what each of those terms mean, please feel free to let me know. There that can explain to me what each of those terms mean, please feel free to let me know.
Rod:Along with critic Vladimir Stasov, who was a big supporter of the five composers, mili Balarakiev and C Zakhoi relentlessly criticised the St Petersburg Conservatoire, its founder Anton Rubinstein and its best-known students, both orally and in print. An example of this can be given from when Tchaikovsky graduated from the Conservatoire. He was asked to write a cantata for chorus and orchestra based on the text of Friedrich Schiller's hymn Ode to Joy. Cesar Cui wrote a review of the performance, stating the Conservatoire composer, mr Tchaikovsky, is quite feeble. Granted, his composition was written under the most unfavourable circumstances, as an assignment which had to be ready by a fixed deadline, using a set theme Schiller's Ode to Joy, which was set to music in the finale of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony and having to comply with the established forms. But all the same, if he did possess any talent, then it would surely have broken through the fetters of the conservatoire at some point. Several years later, tchaikovsky recalled the review, saying when I read this terrible verdict, I didn't know what came over me. My eyes clouded over, my head started spinning and, like a madman, I rushed out of the cafe where I was reading. That came about as a result of social media. And who said that trolling was something that came about as a result of social media?
Rod:It was only when Rubinstein left the Conservatoire that the relationship between Tchaikovsky and the Five began to improve. An uneasy truce developed and in 1869 Tchaikovsky established a working relationship with Balakirev on his first ballet, romeo and Juliet, which, along with his second symphony nicknamed the Little Russian, was praised by the other members of the group. Tchaikovsky reciprocated when he wrote a positive review of Rimsky-Korsakov's Fantasy on Serbian Themes, stating that it was a charming orchestration and showed Rimsky-Korsakov to be a remarkable symphonic talent. Although Tchaikovsky and the group remained friendly due to their differences in music goals and principles, they would never be called real friends. As we come to the end of my tales of Modis, mazursky, the Mighty Five and Emerson Lake and Palmer, I'd like to say thanks to Chris for his suggestion and hope that you found it informative and entertaining, particularly my attempts at pronunciation. So until the next episode of Rod's Ramblings, cheers and take care.
