La Symphonie de Poche

LA SYMPHONIE DE POCHE
Nicolas Simon, conductor
Robin Melchior, arrangements and composition

Members: 13 musicians (string quintet, accordion, harp, flute, 2 clarinets, baritone saxhorn, marimba and other percussion instruments, conductor)

Throughout his life, Modest Mussorgsky was in contact with many Russian artists. But it was with painters that he forged the closest ties, notably Viktor Hartmann and Ilya Repin, who were introduced to him by art critic Vladimir Stassov. When Hartmann died suddenly at the age of 39 in
1873, a huge exhibition featuring more than 400 of his works was organised at the Academy of Fine Arts in Saint Petersburg. Inspired by ten of these paintings, Mussorgsky composed his brilliant piano work Pictures at an Exhibition in 1874, in tribute to his departed friend. Maurice Ravel produced a famous orchestral transcription of it in 1922.

Modest Mussorgsky died at the age of 42, misunderstood during his lifetime. Seeing his friend's death approaching, Stassov, to whom Pictures at an Exhibition was dedicated, informed Repin, who went to the composer's bedside to paint his portrait.

In the manner of Vladimir Stasov, who succeeded in bringing his contemporaries together, we have imagined, with arranger-composer Robin Melchior, a score that brings together and creates a dialogue between the works of Mussorgsky, Hartmann and Repin. Our idea is to start with a new orchestration of Pictures at an Exhibition for La Symphonie de Poche and add compositions inspired by Repin's paintings to the original work. These paintings enhance the original exhibition in a new and composite work: Pictures at a New Exhibition.

Among Repin's paintings, we have chosen to set to music the portrait of Modest Mussorgsky, The Volga Boatmen, Religious Procession in the Kursk Province, Ukrainian Woman in Front of a Hedge, and Gopak, the latter two paintings referring to his native Ukraine.

We will explore these new ‘pictures’ through a Promenade representing, as in Mussorgsky's work, the composer moving through the exhibition: the listener will thus be able to discover new variations, inviting them to move from Mussorgsky's music to that of Melchior.

Duration: 70 minutes without intermission