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Orchestra of the Swan: Pictures at an Exhibition

Transcendent Mozart, enchanting Tchaikovsky and Mussorgsky’s extraordinary musical gallery

Piano Jeneba Kanneh-Mason 

Conductor Michael Collins

“Mozart is the highest, the culminating point that beauty has attained in the sphere of music” wrote Tchaikovsky, a sentiment that is hard to disagree with upon hearing Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 23. The keyboard concertos are the most personal of his works, often written for himself to perform. Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition was inspired by the paintings of Viktor Hartmann. A close friendship developed between painter and composer after their first meeting in 1868 as well as a mutual devotion to the cause of intrinsically Russian art. Following the unexpected death of Hartmann in 1873 Mussorgsky wrote this bold, enchanting work which depicts the composer himself walking through an exhibition of his friend’s paintings.

Arensky Variations on a Theme 

by Tchaikovsky, Op. 35a 

Mozart Piano Concerto No. 23 

Tchaikovsky Swan Lake Suite Op. 20 

(4 movements) * 

Mussorgsky (arr. Pierre-Alain Monot) Pictures at an Exhibition 

https://www.bridgehousetheatre.co.uk/show/orchestra-of-the-swan-pictures-at-an-exhibition/