Melodiya presents Modest Mussorgsky’s piano and vocal cycles: Pictures at an Exhibition and The Nursery arranged for string orchestra.

The transcription was made by Ilya Ioff, a renowned St. Petersburg musician, violinist and conductor. Mussorgsky’s works are performed by his chamber orchestra Divertissement. Mussorgsky’s piano and vocal music has seen dozens of different transcriptions and orchestrations throughout 130 years of its existence. Can a new reading of Pictures at an Exhibition come as a surprise, knowing that the suite was previously played on the organ, bayan and synthesizer, by jazz and rock outfits, and is primarily associated with the gorgeous sound of Ravel’s orchestration? Ilya Ioff, the author of the new transcription, is confident that the string arrangement significantly returns this music to the piano original that Ravel’s post-impressionistic transcription moved so far away from (the more so because Ravel was guided by the first edition of the Pictures prepared by Rimsky- Korsakov, which had some deviations from Mussorgsky’s original).

'… As I tried to interpret the piano pattern as a "native" string one, I unintentionally "rehabilitated" the Russianness of this great cycle by adding, on the one hand, more melodiousness coming from the nature of the string instruments, and, on the other, running away from the temptation of "colouring" the material with effects untypical for 19th century Russian music', Ilya Ioff writes. Unlike Mussorgsky’s other vocal cycles, The Nursery cannot boast of great interest from composers and arrangers. 'No one has turned to the best of what we have with more tenderness and depth', wrote Claude Debussy about this music. 'The sound of a string orchestra combined with a voice is like nothing else able to draw these amazing images of a child’s world, with its laughter and tears, fear and genuine delight', Ilya Ioff says. Interpreting The Nursery, the members of Divertissement showcase their characteristic 'finest, as if engraved, work on the details' as one of the German newspapers noted when the St. Petersburg orchestra were on tour there.

The programme is supplemented with a transcription for strings of the famous symphonic piece Night on Bald Mountain (edited by Rimsky-Korsakov). This arrangement may arouse controversial responses from the connoisseurs and fans of Mussorgsky’s music. However, its controversial nature is quite in accord with the composer’s artistic creed – 'To new shores!'