Modeste Mussorgsky produced his Pictures at an Exhibition in memory of a close friend, Victor Hartmann, who died in 1874, aged only 39. In 1875 an exhibition was held of Hartmann works. Mussorgsky was so deeply moved that he wrote a suite of piano pieces depicting 10 of Hartman's pictures. These include: The Gnome, Children playing in a park, a Chicken ballet, The Catacombs, the House of the witch Baba Jaga, and the Gate of Kiev. Mussorgsky clearly chose these pictures because of the different moods they invoked, which in turn gave rise to a wide and varied musical expression.
The pictures are woven together by a “promenade” theme which forms a bridge between the ever changing moods of the pictures. By alternating 6/4 and 5/4 time, the regular metric “walking” pace is thrown off-balance and cleverly suggests the hesitant gait of an art-lover strolling through a museum.
Listening to the work, one imagines grand imposing pictures of exquisite delicacy and blazing glory. In fact the graphics are modest, conventional and barely remarkable. The drawing of the chicks shows two dancers stiffly modeling plain ballet costumes of egg-shells topped with a few feathers. The witch's hut is merely an ornate clock. Even the Kiev Gate, subject of the towering finale, is but a brick archway decorated with wrought iron, tiles and stained glass.

Alcoholism and severe depression cut short Mussorgsky's life. Fame came only after his early death at age 42, when well-meaning admirers indulgently undertook to edit his operas in order to correct what they thought to be artistic flaws, lapses of inspiration and overall carelessness. Only in more recent times have the originals been revived to display their frank elemental power.
The Pictures at an Exhibition met a similar fate. The score remained unpublished until 1886, five years after Mussorgsky's death. But then, almost immediately, something quite extraordinary happened – while the original version was largely ignored by pianists, over two dozen composers felt compelled to orchestrate it, by far the most famous was by Maurice Ravel. The potent combination of Mussorgsky's varied moods and Ravel's vibrant orchestration have made their Pictures hugely popular with both critics and audiences
The piano version suddenly became popular again when Sviatoslav Richter performed the piece in Sofia, Bulgaria in 1958. Intense, full of nuance, supremely poised and Russian to the core, Richter's masterful performance fully vindicated Mussorgsky's work as a masterpiece in its own right.
(Abbr. from Classical Notes: Modeste Mussorgsky, Pictures at an Exhibition by Peter Gutmann, 2002) Researched on May 15, 2009