IDAGIO | Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition – Prokofiev: 10 Pieces from Romeo & Juliet 00602458145397

Featuring

Nikolai Demidenko
Modest Mussorgsky
Sergei Prokofiev

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Compositional Technique

Prokofiev, an exceptionally gifted pianist, used the keyboard as a powerful tool in his creative process, often composing music in a way that allowed for easy piano reductions.

Composition History

Musorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition was inspired by a posthumous exhibition of works by his friend, the Russian painter and architect Viktor Hartmann, who died suddenly in 1873.

Composer's Artistic Vision

Serge Prokofiev, like other great Russian composers, frequently refashioned his theatre music for concert use, making it more accessible to audiences.

Composition History

Prokofiev's ballet Romeo and Juliet was initially cancelled by the Bolshoi Theatre in 1936 after a political denunciation of other composers' works in Pravda.

Composition History

Prokofiev's Ten Pieces from Romeo and Juliet, Opus 75, is considered an independent piano work, not merely a 'second-hand' score, as indicated by its separate opus number and the composer's own public performances.

Compositional Technique

Almost all the musical material in Musorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition derives from its opening 'Promenade' theme.

Composer Biography

Modest Musorgsky, composer of Pictures at an Exhibition, was an officer cadet in the Imperial Preobrazhensky Guards and met fellow composer Alexander Borodin there.