For their first concerts of 2019, Maestro Nir Kabaretti will lead the Santa Barbara Symphony in a program that, even without the multimedia enhancements, could truly be described as an orchestral spectacular. They call it, for reasons that are abundantly clear, Pictures at an Exhibition.
At 8 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 19, and 3 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 20, in the Granada Theater, Kabaretti and the Symphony will perform Modest Mussorgsky‘s “Pictures at an Exhibition (1874; orchestrated by Maurice Ravel, 1923)” and Johannes Brahms‘s “Violin and Cello Concerto in a-minor, Opus 102 (1887).”
During the Mussorgsky, the Symphony will screen an animated film created by students and graduates at the USC School of Cinematic Arts, which includes, among other images, reproductions of the 10 original paintings by the composer’s friend, the artist Viktor Hartmann, which were the inspiration for the music.
In the Brahms, the Symphony’s concertmaster Jessica Guideri, and principal cellist Trevor Handy will serve as soloists.
Mussorgsky’s two best-known, large-scale orchestra works — Pictures at an Exhibition and the opera Boris Godunov (1772) — achieved their popularity as orchestrated by other composers; Pictures at an Exhibition by Maurice Ravel, and Boris Godunov by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.
Two versions of “Boris” exist as scored by Mussorgsky himself, and have been performed. It’s an open question as to whether Rimsky-Korsakov’s version is actually “better” than Mussorgsky’s, but it is certainly blander and more easily assimilated by the general public: hence, it remains the standard version.
The composer never orchestrated “Pictures,” so it was only the version for solo piano that was heard in concert halls until Ravel applied his uncanny skills to it in 1923.
The Franco-Russian musical affinity is as inexplicable as it is undeniable, and Ravel’s orchestration betrays not a whisper of impressionism or any other French accent: it sounds wholly Russian, and it is doubtful that Mussorgsky would disown it.
The Double Concerto shows us Brahms as his most impressive, though not, perhaps, at his most endearing. Its austere grandeur did not, at first, find much enthusiasm with audiences.
Even Clara Schumann, Brahms’s tireless champion, was doubtful. Yet the concerto has gradually worked its way into the hearts of discriminating concert-goers, and has now established itself a permanent niche in the Pantheon of nineteenth cetury concertos.
Principal Concert Sponsors are Dave and Chris Chernof. Single tickets to this concert are $29-$135, and they can be purchased from the Granada box office, 1214 State St., by phone at 805-899-2222, or on line from www.granadasb.org.
To learn more about the Santa Barbara Symphony or its programming, visit www.thesymphony.org/.
— Gerald Carpenter covers the arts as a Noozhawk contributing writer. He can be reached at gerald.carpenter@gmail.com. The opinions expressed are his own.