The Daily Spin, April 9

Modest Mussorgsky | Pictures at an Exhibition

Welcome back to the Daily Spin, the series in which I review 365 albums during 2023. We’ve made it through the first quarter!

Each album will be given a rating on a scale from 0 to 10. You can look at the entire set here. Additionally, you can check out a list of my favorite song from each album right here.

If you want to suggest an album, good news! You can do so right here!

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Album: Pictures at an Exhibition (1874)

Artist: Modest Mussorgsky 

Link:

 

Here’s the thing. I love instrumental music - beyond its purpose as phenomenal study/grinding music, I genuinely enjoy the way orchestral compositions work as compared to, say, an electropop record. Oftentimes, they’re vastly different worlds of music held together by common thread, and I respect and love that. That said, I also find instrumental work extremely difficult to review. I love the challenge and encourage you all to continue to submit instrumental albums, but this one’s a doozy. 

Recorded in 2009 as a performance by the uber-talented Chicago Symphony Orchestra, this is a visitation of an 1874 album by Modest Mussorgsky, part of Russia’s ‘Mighty Handful’ - a group of highly talented composers and musicians brought together in the late 1800s to breathe new life into Russia’s fine arts scene.

It’s a beautiful album - I don’t know exactly where I’ve heard some of these before, but I know that I have heard ‘Promenade’ in all its forms before, particularly the opening track. It’s not difficult to see why Mussorgsky was heralded as a prodigy in his time - his command of brass, particularly, shines in compositions like ‘Bydlo’ and ‘The Catacombs’, in which he navigates a murky-sounding tune with deft fingers, pushing trombones to the front in expert form. 

The ways in which he revisits the ‘Promenade’ composition at various points throughout the album, altering and changing the structure to gorgeously reflect the mood of the entire work as it progresses. It opens as it closes, majesty with ‘The Great Gate of Kiev’ beckoning you forth. It is beautiful.

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Rating: 8.3/10

Best Tracks: Promenade I, Bydlo

Worst Tracks: Gnomus; Ballet of the Chickens in their Shells