IDAGIO | Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition - Ravel: Le tombeau de Couperin 4250317416018

Featuring

Ensemble Berlin
Maurice Ravel
Modest Mussorgsky

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Composer Biography

Maurice Ravel, a brilliant orchestrator, developed an affinity for Russian music after hearing concerts conducted by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov as a young man.

Composition History

Modest Mussorgsky's 'Pictures at an Exhibition' was inspired by an exhibition of paintings by his friend, the painter and architect Viktor Hartmann, who died suddenly in 1873.

Performer Biography

Ensemble Berlin was formed in 1999 by orchestral colleagues and friends from the Berliner Philharmoniker, who desired to perform chamber music together.

Composition History

Maurice Ravel's 'Le Tombeau de Couperin' was composed between 1914 and 1917 as a tribute to the French Baroque tradition and dedicated to friends who died in World War I.

Recording & Production

The album features arrangements by Wolfgang Renz, an orchestral musician and arranger, who adapted the works for Ensemble Berlin's eleven-member instrumentation.

Interpretation

Wolfgang Renz's arrangement of Ravel's 'Le Tombeau de Couperin' includes the fugue and toccata, which Ravel omitted from his own orchestral version, to highlight their delicacy.

Compositional Technique

Mussorgsky's 'Pictures at an Exhibition' uses connecting 'Promenades' to musically represent a visitor walking through the art exhibition, linking the individual picture-inspired movements.