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Pictures at an Exhibition isn’t just an inspired reflection of art in musical form, it is a conversation between friends.
Modest Mussorgsky composed Pictures at an Exhibition after the death of his close friend, the artist Victor Hartmann. When Mussorgsky attended a posthumous exhibition, he was inspired to create a series of musical responses to the images.
Some of the artworks have been lost to time, so the music is all that remains of them. From a gnome to the Great Gates of Kiev, discover more about five of the artworks which inspired the piece.
The Gnome
The gnome is the first movement and the first picture. Mussorgsky portrays the gnome in stumbling rhythms.
The Old Castle
The second movement is thought to be inspired by a watercolour of an old castle, which Mussorgsky depicts in a melodic composition.
The Ballet of Unhatched Chicks in Their Shells
The energetically playful music in the fifth movement reflects Hartmann’s costume designs for a children’s ballet. The image shows the figures of two children in egg-shaped costumes with birdlike headresses.
Sketches of theatre costumes for the ballet Trilby by Viktor Hartmann
© Wikimedia Commons / Public DomainThe Hut on Fowl’s Legs
The penultimate scene is a terrifying depiction of the witch Baba-Yaga as she hunts in a fast-paced and virtuosic movement.
The Great Gate of Kiev
Hartmann’s sketch was an ornate, monumental design for city gates in Kiev which won a national competition. The gates were never built, but Mussorgsky represents them in a sublime finale.
Experience Pictures at an Exhibition on Fri 22 Aug 2025, 7.30pm.
The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, helmed by conductor Jaime Martín, bring Mussorgsky’s vision to vivid life in the debut performance of their first European tour.
As part of the performance you can also experience the world premiere of Treaty, Indigenous Yorta Yorta composer Deborah Cheetham Fraillon’s latest MSO commission with Kalkadunga yidaki/didgeridoo soloist William Barton.
