Pictures at an Exhibition
What to listen for
Lumina: listen for the contrast between what Shekhar calls “sonic clouds,” – dense clusters of tones – and single notes (a triangle or a bowed vibraphone) that emerge sharp and clear from the overall soundscape.
Marimba Concerto: hear the way the solo marimba part emerges from and complements the orchestra. Listen for places where the music could double as a film score. Hear how the rhythm of the last movement propels the music and the energy forward.
Mussorgsky: Focus on the careful attention to details of timbre (listen for the saxophone’s featured solo, a rare addition to an orchestra in 1922). Notice how each musical portrayal of Victor Hartmann’s visual works comes to life.
Other works by these composers
Shekhar: Hate the Sin, Love the Sinner; Glitter Monster
Puts: The City; Oboe Concerto No. 2 “Moonlight”
Mussorgsky: Night on Bald Mountain; Boris Godunov
Nina Shekhar: Lumina
Composer: born 1995, Detroit, MI
Work composed: 2019-20. Written for the USC Thornton Symphony
World premiere: Donald Crockett led the USC Thornton Symphony on February 28, 2020, at the Bovard Auditorium in Los Angeles, CA
Instrumentation: 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, bass drum, marimba, metal plate, suspended cymbal, triangle, bowed vibraphone, piano, harp, and strings
Estimated duration: 11 minutes
Nina Shekhar is a composer and multimedia artist who explores the intersection of identity, vulnerability, love, and laughter to create bold and intensely personal works. Described as “tart and compelling” (New York Times), “vivid” (Washington Post) and an “orchestral supernova” (LA Times), Nina Shekhar’s music has been commissioned and performed by leading orchestras including the LA Philharmonic, the New York Philharmonic, the Chicago Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra, and the Nashville Symphony, among others.
In addition to writing music, Shekhar is a versatile performing artist as a flutist, pianist, and saxophonist. She is currently a member of the composition faculty at Mannes School of Music at The New School and serves as Composer-in-Residence of The Crossing and Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra’s 2023-2024 Sound Investment Composer. Shekhar is also a faculty mentor for Luna Composition Lab, and co-founded Brightwork newmusic’s Project Beacon initiative.
“Lumina explores the spectrum of light and dark and the murkiness in between,” writes Shekhar. “Using swift contrasts between bright, sharp timbres and cloudy textures and dense harmonies, the piece captures sudden bursts of radiance amongst the eeriness of shadows.” In a 2022 video clip, Shekhar adds, “I create sonic clouds that use dense harmonies and microtones, which are alternate tunings in which several instruments play different inflections of the same note, and this creates the shadow-like blur effect. I contrast these sonic shadows by using brighter timbres that pop out, like harmonics and sharp attacks that represent the light … Silence is actually important to this piece. As an Indian American, I was really inspired by Hindustani classical music, which often involves a soloist who leads a group through improvisation, and the other musicians really need to listen to each other and follow each other. They need to breathe together and hear together in order to speak together.”
Kevin Puts: Marimba Concerto
Composer: born January 3, 1972, St. Louis, MO
Work composed: 1997. Commissioned by the Vermont Symphony Orchestra and the Kobe Ensemble of Japan
World premiere: Kate Tamarkin led the Vermont Symphony Orchestra with soloist Makoto Nakura in October 1997.
Instrumentation: solo marimba, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, trumpet, xylophone, and strings
Estimated duration: 21 minutes
Winner of the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for his debut opera Silent Night, Kevin Puts has been hailed as one of the most important composers of his generation. Critically acclaimed for a richly colored, harmonic, and freshly melodic musical voice that has also been described as “emotional, compelling, and relevant,” his works, which include operas, symphonies, and concertos, have been commissioned, performed, and recorded by leading orchestras, ensembles, and soloists throughout the world. Recent projects include a February 2022 world premiere of the concert version of Puts’ opera The Hours, based on the book and film of the same name, featuring sopranos Renée Fleming and Kelli O’Hara, and mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato.
Puts writes, “Marimba Concerto reflects my love of Mozart’s piano concertos, works with instrumentation similar to that of this concerto, i.e. a keyboard instrument with chamber orchestra. I decided to write a piece which is lyrical throughout and to feature the marimba in both melodic and ornamental roles. The influence of Mozart lies mainly in the relationship between the soloist and orchestra, one of near equality in which the marimba continually interacts with the instruments of the orchestra.
“The work is comprised of three movements – fast, slow, fast – like a Mozart concerto, and each movement bears a subtitle taken from the poetry of my aunt, Fleda Brown. They are: I. “... terrific sun on the brink” (Flowing); II. “... into the quick of losses” (Broad and Deliberate); and III. “... logarithms, exponents, the damnedest of metaphors” (Presto non troppo). The overriding message is one of optimism and exuberance.”
Modest Mussorgsky/orch. Ravel: Pictures at an Exhibition
Composer: born March 21, 1839, Karevo, Pskov district; died March 28, 1881, St. Petersburg
Work composed: June 2 – June 22, 1874. Maurice Ravel orchestrated it in the summer of 1922.
World premiere: Serge Koussevitzky led the Boston Symphony Orchestra in the first performance of Ravel’s version on October 22, 1922, in Paris
Instrumentation: 3 flutes (1 doubling piccolo), 3 oboes (1 doubling English horn), 2 clarinets, bass clarinet, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, alto saxophone, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, side drum, bass drum, rattle, cymbals, tam-tam, whip, triangle, xylophone, glockenspiel, bells, celesta, two harps, and strings
Estimated duration: 33 minutes
Modest Mussorgsky’s most popular composition owes its reputation to its orchestrator, Maurice Ravel. Before Ravel arranged this obscure piano suite for orchestra in 1922, it was virtually unknown.
Pictures at an Exhibition is Mussorgsky’s musical portrayal of a memorial exhibit of artwork by Victor Hartmann, an artist, designer, architect, and close friend. In the spring of 1874, Russian critic Vladimir Stasov organized an exhibition of Hartmann’s work in St. Petersburg, which Mussorgsky attended. By June 22, Mussorgsky transformed ten of Hartmann’s works into music as a further tribute to his friend. Mussorgsky also inserted his own presence into Pictures through the music of the Promenade, which recurs periodically throughout.
The Promenade’s irregular rhythm captures Mussorgsky, a man of considerable size, ambling through the exhibit, sometimes pausing before a particular picture that caught his interest. It leads directly to the first picture, Gnomus (Gnome), Hartmann’s design for a nutcracker. Unlike the princely Nutcracker of Tchaikovsky, however, Hartmann’s nutcracker is a macabre, wizened creature. The return of the Promenade, in shortened form, brings us to Il vecchio castello (The Old Castle), which Stasov says depicts a troubadour singing and strumming a guitar in front of a medieval castle. Ravel’s mournful saxophone sounds the troubadour’s song. The Promenade returns with the majestic brasses and winds of the opening, but stops abruptly in front of the next picture, Tuileries (Dispute d’enfants après jeux) (Tuileries-Dispute between children at play). Here in the famous Tuileries Gardens in Paris, children attended by nannies sing out the universal childhood taunt, “Nyah-nyah.”
Bydlo (Cattle) portrays plodding oxen drawing a heavy cart. A brief Promenade leads us to the oddly named Balet nevylupivshikhsya ptentsov (Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks). Hartmann’s costume designs for a ballet called Trilby inspired this whimsical music, in which child dancers wear egg costumes with their legs sticking out. In “Samuel” Goldenberg und “Schmuÿle,” Mussorgsky combined two of Hartmann’s pictures of Jews in the Sandomierz ghetto of Poland. Samuel Goldenberg is a rich, self-important man (represented by measured phrases of the strings), while Schmuÿle, (characterized by insistent bleatings of a muted trumpet) is portrayed as a whining, cowering beggar. However, Mussorgsky’s title suggests the two men are really the same person (Samuel is the Germanized form of the Yiddish Schmuÿle), and the movement has been generally viewed as an anti-Semitic trope. In Limoges le marchè (La grande nouvelle) (The Market: The Big News), market-women share the latest gossip. Abruptly we are plunged into the Catacombae (Sepulcrum romanum) (Catacombs: Roman sepulcher). This watercolor shows Hartmann and several others inspecting the Parisian catacombs by lantern light, which illuminates a cage full of skulls. Mussorgsky wrote of this piece, “The creative genius of Hartmann leads me to the skulls and invokes them; the skulls begin to glow.” Con mortuis in lingua morta (With the Dead in a Dead Language) follows, a mournful, eerie reworking of the Promenade. The ominous music of The Hut on Fowls’ Legs depicts the witch Baba Yaga of Russian folklore, whose house stood on chicken’s feet. In the final movement, Ravel and Mussorgsky capture the grandeur of The Great Gate of Kiev, Hartmann’s design for the reconstruction of the ancient stone gates of Kiev. Although the actual gates were never built, The Great Gate of Kiev stands as a permanent musical tribute to the city and its epic history.
© Elizabeth Schwartz