Symphony in 60

Pictures at an Exhibition

Sat Jan 7, 2023

Orchestra Hall

60 min, no intermission

Symphony in 60 is a one-hour concert—highlighting popular symphonic works paired with music new to Orchestra Hall. These concerts include a post-concert onstage reception with musicians, an earlier 6pm start time, and make a great introduction for newer Minnesota Orchestra audiences.

A Few Things to Know

From a Parisian park swarming with children to the towering Great Gate of Kiev, Modest Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition is an evocative musical stroll through a gallery of paintings by Viktor Hartmann. In 1874, Mussorgsky completed the musical tribute to Hartmann, his close friend.
Pictures was never performed publicly during Mussorgsky's lifetime. Originally written for the piano, it gained widespread popularity through composer Maurice Ravel’s 1923 re-orchestration of the music, which was premiered in North America by legendary conductor Serge Koussevitzky, known for his role in establishing the Boston Symphony Orchestra.
After its 1899 debut, there are no records of additional performances of Solemn Prelude during the next 122 years; due to discriminatory practices in the orchestral field, the work by Samuel Coleridge-Taylor—who was Black—was never published. After the late-19th century manuscript was tracked down in 2021, the Solemn Prelude is now receiving performances worldwide.
Acclaimed as "one of the most promising and vibrant young conductors of our time," Ryan Bancroft will assume his new post as chief conductor of the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic in 2023.

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Date & Time

Program

COLERIDGE-TAYLOR

Solemn Prelude
1 min note

One Minute Note

This music by a young Samuel Coleridge-Taylor premiered at Britain’s Three Choirs Festival in 1899, then was not performed again until its revival at the same still-active festival in 2021. It made its way to the U.S. for the first time just this past September. Slow and anthem-like, the overture journeys from minor to major across a 10-minute span.
MUSSORGSKY/Ravel

Pictures at an Exhibition
1 min note

One Minute Note

Modest Mussorgsky took as inspiration for this brilliant work—a memorial to his friend, the Russian painter Viktor Hartmann—ten colorful images in a posthumous exhibition of Hartmann’s work. Pictures was originally a virtusoso showpiece for solo piano, but now it is most widely known in this lush, magical orchestration by Maurice Ravel.