Arranging Pictures at an Exhibition for Four Hands
This summer I started my four-hand arrangement of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. I got sidetracked by the same composer's Night on Bald Mountain, but I finished that one fairly quickly and have returned to Pictures (as it is commonly known among musicians!). I now have two of the Promenades, Gnomus, the Old Castle, the Catacombs, and most of Baba-Yaga. Because we are preparing for a Halloween-themed concert in October, I am working on the more frightening movements first — but if I keep up the pace, I may finish the whole thing this summer!
In some ways this arrangement is easier than Night on Bald Mountain, because it already exists in a solo piano form (Mussorgsky's original). But consulting Ravel's orchestrated version for ideas on expanding the texture for four hands adds a layer of challenge: the two composers sometimes made slightly different markings — articulation, dynamics, note lengths — which forces me to decide whose version to follow. Usually Mussorgsky's wins, since I am also writing for piano; but in some cases, four-hands lets one hand hold a note or chord while the other hand does something else, which is often what Ravel's orchestration does since he has more than 20 different instruments to work with! Mussorgsky's writing is quite bare in dynamics and phrasing, whereas Ravel's is highly detailed, so for dynamics I usually use Ravel’s.
Despite all these little differences, it is surprising how faithful Ravel is to the original. Across the movements I have arranged so far, every note is still in its original register (besides a few added octave doublings), and there are no altered harmonies or rhythms anywhere. I am trying to make my arrangement as faithful as Ravel’s and add as little as possible. I have encountered one instance of Ravel adding an orchestral effect (pianissimo glissandos in the strings in Gnomus), so we will need to try it at the piano to see if chromatic scales on the piano sound good in this section!
More to come soon!
