Classical music composers have often—and quite evocatively—been influenced by other art forms, principally the visual arts. The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra will perform two such works this weekend, including the most famous one of all, from 19th-century composer Modest Mussorgsky, and a somewhat less-known example from a century later by Gunther Schuller.
Despite his relatively small body of work and alcohol-shortened life, Mussorgsky remains a towering figure in Russian classical music, largely from his daringly individual and raw musical language. Most evincing of this are his tone poem “Night on Bald Mountain,” opera Boris Godunov and his 1874 masterpiece, Pictures at an Exhibition . The latter was prompted by the untimely death of an artist friend of Mussorgsky’s, Viktor Hartmann, for whom he composed a series of piano pieces based on a group of drawings and watercolors to be displayed at a memorial retrospective. Upon its posthumous publication in 1886, the piano suite attracted widespread attention, with perhaps a dozen different orchestral arrangements by admiring composers.
Of those arrangements, none has come close to challenging the beguilement, dexterity and emotional wallop of the 1922 rendering by French composer Maurice Ravel, the version the MSO will perform. Mussorgsky’s music and Ravel’s orchestral coloration allows the concertgoer to aurally experience visual depictions such as “Gnomus,” a nutcracker in the shape of a gnome; “The Old Castle” and “Tuileries,” which evoke places Hartmann visited; and “Bydlo,” a lumbering wooden-wheeled Polish ox cart. Mussorgsky even composed a theme depicting himself (“Promenade”) strolling about from portrait to portrait. “The Great Gate of Kiev” brings Pictures to a triumphant, resplendent climax—a grandiose expansion of the “Promenade” theme leading to one of classical music’s most awesome finales.
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In his Seven Studies on Themes of Paul Klee (1959), Schuller created a series of symphonic sketches that reflect several paintings by the Swiss artist. Blair Johnston once wrote that Schuller “represents American music making at its best.” An eclectic composer who championed a synthesis of classical and jazz he termed “third stream music,” Schuller also adopted the 12-tone system that was so influential at mid-century. His Seven Studies is both his single most famous work and one of the most consistently programmed pieces written in this technique. Schuller chose seven of Klee’s paintings and attempted to directly translate their composition (colors, shapes, subject, design) into aural processes. The result was a fine set of mood portraits that sound much like their titles, including “Little Blue Devil,” “Arab Village” and “An Eerie Moment.”
Two other works are also on the program. Pianist and composer Marc Neikrug once studied under Schuller at Tanglewood and has made many recordings as a pianist alongside violinist Pinchas Zukerman. The MSO’s principal bassoonist Theodore Soluri will be the soloist for a new Neikrug composition co-commissioned by the MSO, the “Bassoon Concerto.” Rounding out the concert is a work by Mussorgsky’s compatriot, Sergei Prokofiev’s Symphony No. 1 in D Major, Op. 25 (1917).
The MSO will perform under guest conductor Carlos Kalmar at 8 p.m. on Saturday, Nov. 8 and at 2:30 p.m. on Sunday, Nov. 9 at Uihlein Hall in the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts, 929 N. Water St. For tickets, call 414-291-7605 or visit mso.org.
