The Hartman works on canvas, hardly known to art
But known to music, with sounds so profound and wonderful.
You go on the journey through the sounds
That come to your ears
The Promenade through the Academy of St Petersburg
Showing Viktor’s works assembled
As a tribute to the young artist,
Taken from us before his time.
Stopping at The Gnome, running clumsily,
His legs at odds with his body;
He stops when he hears the Troubadour
Playing before The Old Castle
The Promenade continues on to
The Gardens of the Tuileries
Where children play
To sounds so sublime that are formed in your mind
The sound of the Cattle in the distance
Come to you from the sounds from the orchestra
Then BANG! The sounds and the Cattle stop nearby
Only to move on to the sound dying away
The Promenade moves to the Ballet
And there performing on stage
Are Unhatched Chicks to Petipa’s steps
And Gerber’s music
The Canaries hatch, while watching from their frame
Are Goldenburg and Schmuyle.
But now written in music, as well as cast in paint.
The sound meanders along the floor
Until it reaches The Market at Limoges,
Where women are violently quarrelling.
So scuttling away through the Catacombs
Lit by the light of the lamp in hand.
Suddenly the witch is seen in her Hut on Fowl’s Legs,
Baba Yaga! A horrendous sight with her teeth of metal,
long nose and spindly, skinny legs.
The music dies away from this awful place
The Promenade is ending and at the door
The Gates of Kiev, in all their splendour
Give a sound so uplifting, as once more
Mussorgsky moves back to his piano;
To compose “Pictures at an Exhibition”.
-
Author:
Goldfinch60 (Pseudonym) (
Offline) - Published: September 2nd, 2020 01:03
- Comment from author about the poem: Now for something completely different.
- Category: Reflection
- Views: 18
Offline)
Comments7
Good Morning Uncle Andy - ANGELA HERE - I got up early today to secure Pole Position ! Thanks for an awesome rendering of *Pictures at an Exhibition* - I did listen to all of it HONEST. Also for your tremendous *Tone Poem* which visualises all the Pictures & People heard & seen in the MUSIC - A Masterpiece indeed!
Blessings & Peace to You & Yours
Love Angela - Brian & Smokey 🧡💙🤎
Thank you Angela, it is a great story to read and the music in all its forms is so wonderful, obviously the original piano version is best, I was listening to it the other evening played by Andrew Preview.
Andy
Thanks UNCLE ANDY - The piano version - which I attempt to play - is also a fave of mine. I loved the Modern Rock version too!
Love ANGELA
Good write Gold.
Thanks Orchi.
One of my all time favourite pieces of music - original piano that is - not the Ravel orchestration which, good as it is, doesn't reach the same levels as the original. Great write as always.
Thank you Michael, I too prefer the piano version but for ELP to do it was something outstanding back in the 70s.
Andy
What an amazingly awesome experience. Thanks for sharing it Andy
Thank you Fay, much appreciated.
Andy
My ears were assaulted by that live performance of ELP. I didn't like it LOL. But each to their own, it's art after all - personal taste, there's no 'best' or 'good and bad' in art, it's all expression.
You certainly gave us a tour around the exhibition.
I found this on youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1pk1MzX61Q and found it gripping. Such drama. I shall have to listen to the ELP studio version one day for it and they eluded me back in the day.
You are so right about music, there are only two types of music, that which you like and that which you don't like. It doesn't matter though as we both appreciate a great many types of music and we are bound to have differences but I think we have more similarities in our liked than the differences.
That performance was outstanding, Yulianna Avdeeva certainly pulls one into the music with her performance, I shall have to investigate her work.
Andy
wonderfully imaginative and detailed, impressive in its ambitious scope
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