PERFORMERS
- CreArtBox Ensemble
- Emilie Anne Gendron, violin
- Guillermo Laporta, flute
- Josefina Urraca, piano
- Julia Yang, cello
- Matthew Cohen, viola
ABOUT THE CONCERT
Modest Mussorgsky composed Pictures at an Exhibition for solo piano in 1874, moved by the sudden death of his friend, the architect and painter Viktor Hartmann. Walking through a memorial exhibition of Hartmann's work, Mussorgsky translated individual drawings and designs into musical "pictures"—from the lumbering ox-cart "Bydlo" to the fairy-tale hut of Baba Yaga and the towering "Great Gate of Kiev"—linked by a recurring "Promenade" that portrays the viewer strolling between them. Best known today in Maurice Ravel's orchestration, the suite is heard here in an arrangement for flute, string trio, and piano. Mussorgsky, a leading member of Russia's "Mighty Handful," had a gift for vivid pictorial writing and boldly original harmony that shaped later Russian music.