Technical and musical analysi̇s of the piano piece called "Pictures at an Exhibition" by Mussorgsky

Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky lived in a period during which the identity of art in Russia was being shaped. Heavily influenced by both romanticism and realist aesthetic trends, Mussorgsky was also an extremely nationalist composer. In spite of the fact that he entered the world as the son of wealthy and aristocratic parents, his life changed dramatically under Russia's new land reform laws. Thus, Mussorgsky became a military officer and lived a life full of hardship and struggles. He was the only member of the 'Russian Five' whose musical works paid no heed to compositional rules but were created simply as he thought and felt, since he had had no formal musical education. He was a pure intellectual, and had intimate friendships with important literary and philosophical figures of the time. Though on the vanguard of musical impressionism, Mussorgsky was influenced by Chopin, Schumann and Liszt, and he succeeded in creating his own unique musical style based, among other things, on Russian folk music and on the modal sounds of the Russian Orthodox Church. Following the death of his friend, the artist Viktor Aleksandrovich Hartmann, he composed one of the most important and formidable works in the piano repertoire, 'Pictures at an Exhibition,' based on a series of ten paintings by the artist. The following is a musical, aesthetic and technical examination of this work. Keywords: Mussorgsky, Hartmann, Pictures at an Exhibition, Promenade, Russian Five