Pictures at an Exhibition Flute Quartet with Piano

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Pictures at an Exhibition Flute Quartet with Piano (1874)

Modest Mussorgsky (1839 - 1881)

Flute Quartet and Piano

Pictures at an Exhibition by Modest Mussorgsky arranged for Flute Quartet and Piano by Michael Prudchenko. The 1874 composition was originally a suite for piano. The composer’s inspiration was a posthumous exhibit of watercolors and drawings by the composer’s dear friend Viktor Hartmann, who had died suddenly the previous year. Mussorgsky’s enthusiastic and reverent homage to him is a series of musical depictions of 10 of the artist’s canvases. His most famous piano composition has become a showpiece for virtuoso pianists and through the Ravel orchestration orchestra musicians.

Watch live performance videos of this arrangement of Pictures at an Exhibition:

Tuileries, Bydlo, Ballet of Chicks in Their Shells – YouTube
The Hut of Baba Yaga – The Great Gate of Kiev – YouTube

With this arrangement of Pictures at an Exhibition you get:

Full Score/Piano part (72 pages, spiral bound, 9″ x 12″)

Flute quartet parts (each 20 pages, saddle stapled, 9″ x 12″)

• Flute 1 doubling Piccolo
• Flute 2
• Flute 3 doubling Alto Flute
• Flute 4 doubling Bass Flute

Whether you choose to perform only a movement or the entire work, This arrangement of Pictures at an Exhibition provides ample opportunity for individual and ensemble showmanship. Due to performance length and technical demands, as a whole, this arrangement is graded 6+ but some individual movements and “promenade” sections are easily accessible by intermediate performers. The movements are:

• Promenade I – The Gnome (Gnomus)
• Promenade II – The Old Castle
• Promenade III – Tuilleries
• Bydlo
• Promenade IV – Ballet of Chicks in Their Shells
• Samuel Goldenburg and Schmuyle
• Promenade V – The Market at Limoges
• Catacombs – Con Mortuis
• The Hut of Baba Yaga
• The Great Gate at Kiev

Audio and score excerpts are available above.

About the Composer

Modest Mussorgsky (21 March 1839 – 28 March 1881)

Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky (born March 9 [March 21, New Style], 1839, Karevo, Russia—died March 16 [March 28], 1881, St. Petersburg). Mussorgsky was an extraordinarily individualistic Russian composer of the late 19th century. His most famous works are the opera Boris Godunov, the orchestral tone poem Night on a Bald Mountain, and the piano suite Pictures at an Exhibition. As a composer he was often in deliberate defiance with the conventions of Western music and was one of the group of Russian composers named ‘The Five’ who aimed to establish a Russian national style of music composition.

He lived a turbulent life. Many of his most famous works were left unfinished at his death. On February 24, 1881, three successive attacks of alcoholic epilepsy laid him low. His friends took him to a hospital where for a time his health improved sufficiently for one of the leading Russian artists of the day, Ilya Repin, to paint a famous portrait of him. Mussorgsky’s health was irreparably damaged, however, and he died within a month, shortly after his 42nd birthday.

About the Arranger

Michael Peter Prudchenko (b. 1940) is a Ukrainian conductor, educator, adjudicator, and arranger.

In 1952 Michael Pruchenko began his music studies at the Kiev Military Music School, and later transferred to Moscow Military Music College to continue his music studies. Michael Prudchenko studied military band conducting at the Moscow P.I. Tchaikovsky State Music Conservatory. After graduation in 1966 he was drafted to serve in the USSR army as a military band conductor. After his discharge, he continued music studies at the Kiev P.I. Tchaikovsky State Music Conservatory majoring in Orchestral Conducting.  Starting in 1973, Michael served as a conductor of the Ukrainian National Radio Broadcast Pops Symphony Orchestra. From 1979 he worked as a conductor of the “Kiev Music-Hall” Symphony Orchestra, and from 1983 he conducted the State Symphonic Band of Ukraine. During his professional conducting carrier, Michael Prudchenko toured through Ukraine, Poland, Russia, Armenia, Georgia, Estonia, Lithuania, Holland, Hungary, etc. As an educator, Michael taught at The Kiev R. Glière Music College (1970), and Kiev Institute of Culture (1992-2009). As a University Band Director, he won First Prize at the International Wind Band Competition “Surmy-98” in Rivne (1998). From 2009-present, Mr. Prudchenko serves as a professor of conducting at the P. I. Tchaikovsky National Academy of Music.

Michael Prudchenko was awarded “Merited Artist of Ukraine” as well as “People’s Artist of Ukraine”, the two highest honorary titles awarded by the President of Ukraine for outstanding achievements in music. He created this arrangement of Pictures at an Exhibition in 2009.

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