[.ca] Pictures At An Exhibition/Nigh

Amazon.com essential recording:
This was one of the recordings that put Telarc on the musical map, and first revealed the potential of digital recording technology to millions of music lovers and stereo buffs. It's still one of the very finest recordings of "Pictures" around, both as sound and performance. Lorin Maazel maintained the high standards of execution that George Szell inculcated during his quarter century in Cleveland, and for sheer hair-trigger precision, the playing is simply unbeatable. In addition, Telarc captured the performance in what was then and remains demonstration-quality sound, with the famous bass drum thwacks putting a practically subsonic foundation on the whole enterprise. Still a classic. --David Hurwitz

What else is there to say?:
What is that saying? Oh, yeah: "Everything that can be said has been said. It just hasn't been said by everyone yet." This was the first CD I bought. In fact, I bought it a couple of years before I was finally able to buy my first CD player (they were really expensive). I was a stereo salesman in those bygone days. I've always felt I owed Maazel, Telarc, the Cleveland Orchestra, et al, a commission for all the money I made simply playing this recording for my custoemrs and shutting up. And now more than a quarter century has gone by. I no longer sell stereo equipment (thank God), CD players cost about the same as a two Big Macs, the world has fallen apart and been patched back together so many times I've lost count, and this is still the best damned reason for digital stereo I've ever heard. If you don't own it you should. If you do own it you already know why.

Definitive:
Lorin Maazel's discography is quite varied. Most of his early recordings are famous (like this one) and are considered classics. However, as he aged, critics began to feel his perchance for technicality began to take precedence over emotion. This CD was one of the conductor's first recordings, and it is still considered today THE definitive Pictures at an Exhibition. The sound is crystal clear in this digital masterpiece. The orchestral playing is top-notch and cannot be matched. The sound is transparent revealing Ravel's beautiful orchestration. This truly is one of those CDs that everyone should own, no matter what. Although the other reviews have summed up most of my feelings on this CD, I cannot stress how wonderful this CD is. A MUST!

Cool music!:
I have the SACD version, and that is by far better in two ways, better sounding, and listen to this guys, the different pieces in "Pictures at an Exhibition" has been split up. So, instead of 2 tracks, there are 16. Don't have SACD? No problem. It is a Hybrid CD, which allows you to play it on all compact disc players!

An aural spectacle, musical storytelling at its best!:
Having at least four versions of Mussorgsky's famous tone-poem (including the original piano version from which Ravel based his magnificent orchestration), I still maintain Lorin Maazel and the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra's version as my hands-down favorite. This rendition, with the CSO's astute pacing, brings to mind the masterful storytelling abilities of today's best cinema scores-an attribute highly appropriate for a work of this sort. I will agree with the Penguin Guide's assessment that this is "not one of the more subtle readings" of this work. Maazel takes advantage of the full force of the CSO with agile strings, confident, energetic winds, and deep, thundering percussions. And with Telarc's crystal-clear accuracy, you will find little in want here. Except perhaps the often-stated lack of chapter sectioning-a nice to have, though not critical, feature.

A definitive look at Lorin Maazel's capabilities.:
With Lorin Maazel recently installed as the music director of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, there arises the question "What can we expect from this relationship?" As a partial answer to the question, I have gone through my own library of Maazel recordings, covering a period of nearly 40 years and several orchestras and labels, as well as a fairly wide range of repertoire, to select this all-Mussorgsky album as one of the finest he has done to date. The album has been in my library for nearly a quarter-century in LP form, and then the CD release was added very early in the market launch of CDs in the U.S. nearly 20 years ago. The passage of time has not diminished in the slightest either the superb performances or the equally superb sonics of this Telarc recording, made with the Cleveland Orchestra. Maazel's relationship with the musicians of the Cleveland Orchestra was nothing if not "stormy"; as a result, his tenure there was fairly short-lived. But - in his favor - he is both a superb "orchestra builder" and a conductor not known for waywardness. (As an aside, anyone looking for a "wayward," unidiomatic performance of the Mussorgsky/Ravel "Pictures at an Exhibition" need look no further than Sergiu Celibidache's performance, on EMI, with the Munich Philharmonic. If nothing else, that Celibidache recording will provide one with an appreciation of this Maazel recording.) Both Mussorgsky works on this recording are testimony to a number of interrelated factors: the warm acoustics of Severance Hall in Cleveland, the recording techniques of Telarc (using minmal microphone set-ups in ideal locations as pioneered by Robert Fine of Mercury Records), the muscianship of the orchestra, and the interpretive insights of Maazel. The ensemble work throughout is razor-sharp, with ultra-clean entrances and perfect balance of orchestral choirs. The recording provides a heightened sense of realism, in which the ability of Maazel to draw out the inner lines of the music is supported by the technical genius of Bob Woods and Jack Renner and their Telarc team in providing the acoustical ambience for appreciating the work of conductor and orchestra. Nowhere is this combination made clearer than in the closing pages of "The Great Gate of Kiev" in "Pictures at an Exhibition." The final perorations of the brass choir, in the concluding coda, are simply stunning in their top-to-bottom fullness and clarity. To this day, I still marvel at the ability to hear every single instrumental line in this brass peroration; it is as if I could "focus" on any individual instrument of my choice. Surely, despite its age, this recording remains as one of the benchmarks for audio quality not soon to be surpassed. By today's standards, this CD is rather "small measure" in terms of listening time (although it certainly wasn't in its original LP guise, or in the very earliest days of CDs). And, as much as I enjoy the Ravel transcription of "Pictures at an Exhibition," I also like to listen to both the Stokowski transcription and the Gorchakov one (the favorite of Kurt Masur, Maazel's predecessor at the NYPO) as well. But Maazel's reading of the Mussorgsky/Ravel remains the definitive one for me. This CD is both a piece of "audio history" and a pair of stunning performances with the Cleveland Orchestra performing and sounding at its very highest level. Yes, definitely one of Maazel's best.

• Night On Bald Mountain
• Pictures At An Exhibition