"What Makes it Great", an Instructional Concert Series with Rob Kapilow's Analysis of One Great Masterwork - Now at Baird Auditorium

[porcupine]

This past Sunday I attended a most delightful presentation at Baird Auditorium, in which Rob Kapilow spent an hour analyzing Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition"*, with the help of pianist Yuliya Gorenman.  After this and a brief intermission, she performed the entire work.  The performance was followed by a question and answer session.

The title pretty much says it all.  If you've ever wondered why a particular piece of music is well-regarded, Kapilow explains it.  If you have some music background you'll get more out of it, but even my musically illiterate** husband was able to follow, enjoy, and understand it.

Lots more information here. Tickets on sale through Smithsonian Associates.

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*in its original form, as a work for solo piano

**I don't mean that as a slam, but he is literally musically illiterate, not knowing what a "measure" or "minor key" or "time signature" or "grace note" mean.

[DonRocks]

I can't tell you how much I appreciate you posting this - these types of presentations are my absolute favorite: take one thing of complexity, unRavel it (pun intended) in a way that's informative and entertaining, and then after the knowledge has been conveyed, present it in its entirety (with breaks for Q&A, or a Q&A session at the end). More than anything else, this reminds me of the greatest museum experience I've ever had: the Bayeux Museum, in which users go through a series of exhibits, explaining what the Bayeux Tapestry is - it's an entertaining, fun, workaday presentation that breaks this enormous, complex work of historical art down into manageable pieces, and after about 30-60 minutes of preparation, visitors walk into the next room where the actual tapestry is, and they get to experience what they've just learned about. The first part was every bit as fun and rewarding as seeing the actual tapestry - the *entire museum* is dedicated to this one, lone tapestry and nothing else! To me, the methodology that you describe Kapilow using is the ne plus ultra of the teaching-learning experience.

I see from the link that Kapilow is giving numerous presentations such as this, and it's a personal loss that I didn't attend this one, because Pictures at an Exhibition is one piece that I've found to be not just long, complex, and difficult, but also overplayed, hackneyed, and tired, and I'd bet anything Kapilow's fresh approach would make me love it again (in a way, the piece is like the Goldberg Variations - it's *hard work* to learn, even as a listener).

Incidentally, porcupine, many pianists feel the definitive recording of Pictures is by Sviatislov Richter (disclaimer: along with Brooks Robinson, Richter is one of my two heros). It was recorded live during his 1958 recital in Sofia, Bulgaria, and this would be on my short list for "greatest classical piano CD ever recorded" - in that link, the writer says, "Richter's interpretation of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition is often said to be definitive, and indeed there are few (if any) rival interpretations of the original piano version of the work that can leave you totally convinced you'd rather hear this than Ravel's orchestration." Anyway, the CD on Amazon is here, or I'd be happy to give you my copy (it's also on YouTube in 4 parts, but the sound quality is poor and I advise against watching it as your first listening).

Interestingly, I saw Pictures at an Exhibition performed on *classical guitar* once at the Kennedy Center by Kazuhito Yamashita (amazingly, I found the original Washington Post review (*) online), and while the music is just too "big" for a single acoustic guitar, Yamashita did as well as anyone possibly could have (it was Yamashita's own arrangement, and it was fascinating if not entirely successful).

Anyway, there are other pieces that Kapilow is going to be tackling that I'm very interested in seeing for various reasons, and I'm going to try and catch a couple of these shows. Thanks again for posting - I would have never known about this series. On a side note, I'll bet you loved (or would have loved) "Schickele Mix" - without knowing anything about Rob Kapilow, I'd bet that he has been influenced by Peter Schickele, who, in my eyes, was an absolute genius, and should be about ten-times more famous than he is.

(*) Going way off-topic here, in general, it amazes me how shallow, empty, and vacuous most classical music critiques are. Having been at the performance, I can verify that this review is correct - I don't disagree with a single word he wrote - and yet, what's the point of having written it? It serves no purpose other than for the paper to be able to say, "We were there."

[porcupine]

I can't tell you how much I appreciate you posting this...

... it's a personal loss that I didn't attend this one, because Pictures at an Exhibition is one piece that I've found to be not just long, complex, and difficult, but also overplayed, hackneyed, and tired, and I'd bet anything Kapilow's fresh approach would make me love it again (in a way, the piece is like the Goldberg Variations - it's *hard work* to learn, even as a listener).

Incidentally, porcupine, many pianists feel the definitive recording of Pictures is by Sviatislov Richter (disclaimer: along with Brooks Robinson, Richter is one of my two heros)...

Interestingly, I saw Pictures at an Exhibition performed on *classical guitar* once at the Kennedy Center by Kazuhito Yamashita ...

Anyway, there are other pieces that Kapilow is going to be tackling that I'm very interested in seeing ...

...I'd bet that he has been influenced by Peter Schickele, who, in my eyes, was an absolute genius, and should be about ten-times more famous than he is.

You're welcome.

You're right - it is overplayed, and like anything overplayed is likely to become cliched, so it was a really good choice for "what makes it great".  It would've opened your ears to new possibilities.

Thanks for the links.

Did you know that Emerson, Lake, and Palmer also interpreted Pictures at an Exhibition?

Me, too.  Especially Cole Porter.

And Schickele is one of my musical heroes. 

[The Hersch]

I've never cared for either version of "Pictures at an Exhibition", but kind of wish I'd been there to be persuaded that the original version is great.

Don, you write of Peter Schickele as if he were no longer living. As far as I know, he is. I loved "Schickele Mix" and was very sorry when it ended. (Those who don't know Schickele's work, you may have heard of his composer alter-ego, P.D.Q. Bach.)