Mussorgsky: Pictures At An Exhibition / Prokofiev (LP)

An art exhibition in honour of his friend, the painter Victor Hartmann, inspired Mussorgsky to compose his piano cycle in 1874, the idea of which is as simple as it is obvious: a kind of ‘first-person narrator’ wanders through the gallery and looks at ten paintings in great detail. Maurice Ravel orchestrated them for orchestra in 1922. Giulini’s performance with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra is widely regarded as a reference recording. Prokofiev wrote his First Symphony in the middle of the First World War. In sound and form, it differs from other works by the composer. No gigantic late romantic orchestra, no performance time of an hour, but a classical orchestra, and only fifteen minutes are needed for his Symphony no.1, which was written in 1916/17. The audiophile vinyl series The Original Source presents outstanding recordings from the 1970s in a whole new sound quality. For this, the renowned Emil Berliner Studios have remastered and edited the original four- and eight-track tapes in 100% analogue quality (AAA) using technologies developed specifically to produce the series. The sonic differences from the original releases are considerable: greater clarity, more subtleties and improvements in frequency response, while at the same time less background noise, distortion and compression allow for an audiophile listening experience like never before. On 180g vinyl records and in a deluxe gatefold edition with original covers and lyrics, the copies of this series are released limited and numbered, accompanied by additional photos and facsimiles of the recording logs and band boxes.