Pictures at an Exhibition

Suite of piano pieces by Mussorgsky, composed in 1874 in memory of the painter and architect Victor Alexandrovich Hartmann (died 1873). The work illustrates pictures and designs by Hartman shown at a memorial exhibition organized by Vladimir Vassilevich Stassov. Orchestral versions of the suite have been made by Henry J Wood, Stokowski, and Walter Goehr, as well as a brass band arrangement by Elgar Howarth. The most frequently heard version, however, is the orchestration by Maurice Ravel which is so well-known that it is a common mistake to assume that Ravel wrote the original piece.

The Ravel orchestration was first performed at the Paris Opéra, on 19 October 1922, conducted by Koussevitzky.