Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition

I have noticed that there are several choices in sheet music for Pictures at an Exhibition. Can anyone recommend one above the others? I am an advanced intermediate player and still appreciate fingering, clear printing, nice paper, etc. Thank you in advance.

The Henle gets a lot of praise. I have considered picking it up, although I am totally happy with my Schirmer edition.

The Schirmer is the original score as written by Mussorgsky. There are no fingerings, although I like figuring out the fingerings myself anyway. Other than that, it has the clear printing and decent enough paper, and it's available for 10 dollars.

I also have the Horowitz transcription thanks to Valarking. In certain areas, his embellishments really add significant difficulty to an already challenging piece. I only recommend using it if you have the original score handy.

Can anybody please give me the approximate level difficulty of this whole suite? Thanks, I want to learn it.

A few of the pictures are tough, but most are very accessable. If you've been playing for a couple of years you can probably play all of the pictures and promenades but two. It's one of the great piano pieces in my opinion.

It's probably available free online as well. Some of the pictures are available here . No harm in trying it out.

I would say that most of the pictures are not at all easy and at least half are for professional level pianists only. Very few are feasible for those that have studied only a couple of years.

I've played a few of the movements and siteread most of the others. Its actually not as hard as it sounds. Most of the movements are intermediate level. The Promenade and the Great Gate at Kiev are easier than that.

I agree with pianoloverus. I play around an ABRSM grade 6 (more than a couple of years playing) and can handle only a few of the pictures, although as gryphon said there's no harm (and in this case a lot of fun) trying them out.

IMHO the easiest picture is "The Old Castle", so you might want to start there. The various "Promenades" are probably next, followed by "Bydlos" and the "Great Gate of Kiev" (Kiev is about the upper limit of my present ability). "Gnomus", "Limoges", "Baba Yaga", etc. are well beyond me at this time...

This has been published? Who transcribed the transcription? I understand that Horowitz never published his transcriptions.

It's fun going through and playing a few passages. You can start off with the opening promenade. If Gnomus is too hard (i'm just starting to look at it myself), the Old Castle and Bydlo and the surrounding promenades are fairly easy. The Old Castle is deceptively tough... you can get the fingerings and notes down in a couple of days, but getting the voicings and feeling right can require some serious concentration. I'm still struggling on a few areas, trying to make them convincing.

Valarking had it on his site. He can get it to you, and if he is ok with me passing it around, I can email you the pdf files.

And the last pages of The Great Gate also require vituoso technique to play well IMHO.

Most of the pictures are not too bad - I personally think the real tough ones are the Marketplace of Limoges, The Hut of Baba Yaga, and the Great Gate of Kiev. Tuilleries seems a bit awkward, but playable, and the ballet of the unhatched chicks is a little tricky, but overall, I think they're all playable.

Especially the section starting around measure 89 with the RH and LH jumps, if played at anything close to a reasonable tempo...

I've never had any difficulty with the leaps in Kiev. After a bit of practice, they aren't too difficult. I think most of Pictures isn't technically difficult, but I try to make it sound like Ravel's orchestration which is the hard part. It's easier if you've played other pieces with big leaps. Otherwise, this movement probably isn't the best place to start.

Ya, I have the Horowitz version.
http://horowitzscores.tripod.com

Or just email me at valarking@gmail.com if the site is down.

Wow, thanks fo that!