Orchestra offers an ‘Exhibition’ of music, words and pictures

Whatever inspired a composer to create a grand piece of music – love, life, nature, God or man’s inhumanity to man – is woven into the notes and the arrangement. The listener does not necessary need to know the source of the inspiration, only how the music washes over them and makes them feel.

Sometimes, as in the case of Pictures at An Exhibition by the Russian composer Modest Mussorsgsky (1839-1881), the inspiration is right there in the name. This 10-movement piece, performed this weekend by The Florida Orchestra, sprang from Mussorsgsky’s impressions of paintings and drawings by his friend, artist Viktor Hartmann.

He wrote the work for piano in just three weeks, following Hartmann’s sudden death in 1873.

TFO Music Director Michael Francis will dig deep into the history of this timeless work of art with Inside Pictures at an Exhibition, Thursday at 7:30 p.m. at the Mahaffey Theater. He’ll talk about the work, and conduct the orchestra in a full performance.

Pictures at an Exhibition is also the centerpiece of the weekend’s full TFO concerts, Saturday at the Mahaffey and Sunday at Ruth Eckerd Hall.

“Most music is self-contained, absolute, and does not require things,” Francis explained. “But when the composer has deliberately used them for inspiration, and wants us to be aware of them, then I think that’s a good opportunity for us to draw attention to it.”

Six or seven of the original Hartmann works survive, and they will be projected Thursday as Francis discusses their relation to the lyrical movements in the piece. “I’m a firm believer that intellectual understanding leads to more powerful emotional contact,” the conductor explained. “So instead of putting up the name of each one on the screen as we’re listening, where there is a picture we’ll put those up so people can just see that.”

The Hartmann works will also augment the weekend performances. Those concerts also include Korngold’s cinematic Violin Concerto, featuring violinist Stefan Jackiw, along with Hindemith’s Mathis der Maler Symphony.

Mussorgsky wrote Pictures at an Exhibition as piano concerto; Francis has chosen to program the 1922 orchestration by Maurice Ravel.

For Francis, this was a no-brainer.

“If you compare Ravel’s orchestrations with a couple of other ones – they’re decent, but they sound prosaic in comparison to Ravel’s incredible imagination,” he said. “These pieces are almost orchestrated, themselves, in the way Mussorgsky wrote them for piano. So they lend themselves extremely well as these little postcards, or pictures, of various scenes or moments in society.”

Mussorgsky, explained Francis, was “one of the fathers of the new nationalistic style,” giving his music a distinctly Russian identity. “He’s designed it in a way that it’s a great commentary on Russian society. It also captured the aristocracy of Saint Petersburg, because they would speak French. So a lot of the movements have a very French/Parisian feel as well.

“So it’s Russian, but it’s much bigger than that. It’s European, it’s grand, it’s supernatural, it’s astonishing what he achieved. And the variety of music is absolutely amazing.”

Francis believes the characters from Hartmann’s “pictures” come to vivid life in Mussorgsky’s music. “He used them as a jumping-off point for a bigger sense of social commentary. It’s not just Mussorgsky walking past a picture, looking and going ‘Oh, there’s an idea,’ you actually feel him jumping inside the paintings.”

The Florida Orchestra is offering two ways to experience the Mussorgsky/Hartmann exhibition. At Thursday’s “pay what you can” event, Francis will talk about each image and explain its relationship to the music.

For the regular concert performances, the images will be projected as the music plays, sans commentary.

“Vivaldi’s Four Seasons is so much better when you know the poems,” Francis posited. “Then the whole thing comes to life in a much better way.

“Can you perform the music without it? Absolutely. But having some context, to actually understand what it’s about, to me only enhances. And if people don’t want to see that, they can just close their eyes.”

Inside Pictures at an Exhibition, 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Mahaffey Theater. Pay what you can.

Concert: Mussorgsky/Ravel, Korngold, Hindemith: 8 p.m. Saturday, Mahaffey Theater (tickets at this link); 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Ruth Eckerd Hall (tickets at this link).