What makes Sviatoslav Richter’s famous Sofia performance of Pictures at an Exhibition so special isn’t so much its virtuosity and brilliance as it is the great pianist’s sense of timing. He manages both to characterize each little piece and at the same time group them and balance them (in terms of tempo and phrasing) so as to create a real sense of onward flow and an overarching unity of conception. This isn’t a quality that any performer can guarantee on a regular basis. It’s a function not only of what the player does, but also of such external factors as the actual sound of the instrument in the specific concert room, and, in a recording situation, even the way the engineers edit the tape (and in particular whether or not they respect the performer’s handling of pauses or rests between individual movements or sections).
Eugene Ormandy’s spectacular orchestral performance on Sony has, in addition to extraordinary playing, exactly this special quality. More than any other version of Ravel’s orchestration, including his own later one for RCA, he displays Richter’s ability to see the work whole, and to convey this through tempo, rhythm, accent, and even his use of silence. Right from the bold, eager-sounding opening trumpet solo, the performance hangs together as a single entity. Gnomus explodes from the end of the initial Promenade; The Old Castle flows like mist over the moors; Limoges offers the requisite lightness without ever becoming frantic; the Catacombs echo with dread; Baba-Yaga’s hut lurches and leaps on its fowl’s legs; and no one, ever, has timed the closing pages so well, nor has so perfectly balanced massed brass, tam-tam, and bells.
This recording was one of the best selling classical LPs of all time, deservedly so, which makes it all the more incredible that Sony never saw fit to issue it on CD anywhere but in Japan, the source of this very inexpensive (under $10), fabulously remastered reissue. It’s available through online mail order from places like HMV Japan, and Tower Records on 4th Street in New York also carries it as an import when it can. The coupled performance of Scheherazade is the familiar one readily available on Essential Classics: a lushly Romantic rendition, and an old friend to Ormandy fans the world over. Still, it’s the incomparable Mussorgsky performance that matters here, and if you’ve been waiting for it as long as I have, you’ll find some way to get this disc now, rather than waiting until someone at Sony wakes up and releases it domestically.
