Naxos releases one of its featured recordings in a digital-only format. Conductor, arranger and composer Peter Breiner's new orchestrations of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, Songs and Dances of Death, and The Nursery will be available as MP3 and 24 bit/96 kHz High Definition Audio downloads.
Pictures at an Exhibition was written in 1874 as a set of piano pieces, a translation into music of watercolors and drawings by Mussorgsky’s friend Victor Hartmann, who had died the year before. These piano pieces have been orchestrated by dozens of composers, with the version by Maurice Ravel being the most performed and recorded. In this new version, Peter Breiner has orchestrated the pieces for a larger orchestra of piccolo, three flutes, alto flute, four oboes, cor anglais, four clarinets, bass clarinet, four bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, four trumpets, four trombones, tuba, timpani, and six percussion players, with bass drum, snare drum, cymbals, tam-tam, anvil, temple blocks, cabassa, tambourine, tubular bells, glockenspiel, xylophone, marimba, and vibraphone. The orchestra used also has piano, harp and celeste, with a string section of sixty players.
Extra material for download
