I have had a fascination with foreign languages since high school and have attempted to learn several – whether in school, at home, in full-immersion summer courses, or just by hanging out with foreign people in general. To much avail, I speak no other language well, apart from a few phrases which amuse my 5-year-old son. This fascination occurred when I read Ciardi’s translation of Dante’s Inferno and simultaneously (and coincidentally) learned a phrase in my Latin class, omni traductor traditor, or “every translator is a traitor.” (Ironically I must translate this phrase, assuming that the reader does not know Latin.) Simply put, the original is the true source, and any translation of it will result in contamination. So to do this right, I need to learn Italian before I attempt to understand the Inferno as Dante intended? Fantastico!Some purists may think the same applies to music.
Take Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. The original piano suite of 1874 has been orchestrated, rearranged and edited by numerous composers and musicians. The most well-known is Maurice Ravel’s orchestration of 1922. While this is the most commonly performed, there are over 100 different arrangements and orchestrations but only about a quarter are written for standard orchestra. Among the rest includes some surprising examples like one for solo accordion, one for 45 pianos (!), and even one for tuba quintet. Some of you may even recognize Mussorgsky’s piece from the 1971 live album of the same name by Emerson Lake and Palmer, which offered a certainly unique (and distortedly electronic) interpretation.
Maurice Ravel was a master of orchestration and used oddly-paired instruments and instrument sections to achieve new orchestral colors. Just listening to a few strains of Bolero will give you enough of an example. For example, midway through Bolero Ravel gives the main theme to the celeste (a small keyboard whose hammers strike small bells instead of strings) and solo horn, but writes the same melody three steps higher in one piccolo and five steps higher in the other, creating the impression you are listening to a pipe organ with its natural overtones. Serge Koussevitsky (uncle of former ISO music director Fabien Sevitzky – note the abbreviated surname) made the perfect choice when he commissioned Ravel to orchestrate the work for his own use. He knew Ravel would create a masterpiece from Mussorgsky’s already-masterful piano work which up to that point was relatively unknown.
So the question of the day: which is more effective – the original piano version or the Ravel orchestration? Even if the latter is more effective, does it betray Mussorgsky’s objective? Personally, I find the “Promenades” (the music you hear as the viewer “moves” from one painting to the next within the gallery) are more effective on piano, though the vignettes based on the pictures are more beautifully illustrated with the use of full orchestra. Hear what Ravel does to a movement like Bydło (“cattle” in Polish). It describes a large heavy cart drawn slowly by oxen. In the piano version, it begins loudly, as if the cart was standing before you (or perhaps is taken from the viewpoint of the cart driver), and remains that volume throughout the entire movement. Ravel’s orchestration, however, begins quietly, gradually increases in volume as the cart conceivably moves closer to you and then fades away into the distance. Again, a simple idea yet completely effective; though based on dynamic markings in Mussorgsky’s piano score, it was not the original intention of the composer. Improved or contaminated? Or perhaps just different? Normally orchestral works were reduced to piano score to expand their popularity (a music fan is more likely to have a piano, not a 90-piece orchestra, sitting in his or her living room), but in this case it is the opposite – the orchestral version put Pictures on the map.
Because MP3s imbedding is not possible in this blogware, please forgive my use of YouTube clips. The first is of Sviatoslav Richter performing the original piano version of the concluding movements of Pictures at an Exhibition, entitled Baba Yaga, or the Hut on Fowl’s Legs followed by The Great Gate of Kiev; the second clip is of Herbert von Karajan leading the Berlin Philharmonic in the same movements using Ravel’s orchestration.
What do you think? Please post your thoughts in the comment section below. What works in the piano version that does not in the orchestral version? Vice-versa? Does Ravel “spice up” the original version with orchestral colors or does he ruin the composer’s intent?
Watch/listen/comment here, or decide for yourself if you attend the opening Symphony on the Prairie concert this weekend. The ISO will be performing Ravel’s orchestration of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition on Saturday, June 19 at 8pm. I would personally love to hear comments online or in person!
Ciao ~
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