Mussorgsky – Baba Yaga (Pictures of an Exhibition) – Buniatishvili, Piano
Written in C Minor, Baba Yaga, The Hut on Hen’s Legs, is the ninth piece of Pictures of an Exhibition, a suite of ten pieces (plus a recurring, varied Promenade) composed for piano by Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky. Mussorgsky based his musical material on drawings and watercolours by Hartmann produced mostly during the artist’s travels abroad. Locales include Italy, France, Poland, Russia, and Ukraine. Today most of the pictures from the Hartmann exhibition are lost, making it impossible to be sure in many cases which Hartmann works Mussorgsky had in mind. – Khatia Buniatishvili
