Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
Unauthorized use or reproduction is prohibited without written permission from the author.
PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION
Modest Mussorgsky
An Interdisciplinary Unit
Language Arts, Music, Technology, Art, Drama
Judith Spitzberg
2001-2002
Musical Strands
Strand I. Reading and Notating Music
Strand ll: Music Production
-singing, and performing on instruments
-movement and dancing to a variety of styles
Strand lll: Listening to, analyzing, evaluation and describing
Music and music performances
Strand lV: Understanding relationships between music, the other
Arts, and disciplines outside the arts
Strand V: Understanding music in relation to history and culture
MODEST MUSSORGSKY
1839-1881
Modest Mussorgsky grew up in the village of Karevo, Russia to a well-to-do landowner.
His home was surrounded by great forests filled with many wild animals and all kinds of
birds. The familys nursemaid spent many hours telling the children Russian fairy tales
based on old legends such as the witch who lived in a hut standing on hens legs. These
tales became themes for some of his music.
At the age of ten he studied piano in St. Petersburg and later, in the military academy, met
Alexander Borodin, another famous Russian composer. Mussorgsky wrote opera and songs
reflecting the rhythms and contours of Russian speech. His opera Boris Godunov is
considered to be his masterpiece. Mussorgsky struggled with emotional problems and
alcohol addiction. At his death, in 1881, he left three unfinished operas.
Mussorgsky became part of The Mighty Five, composing rich nationalistic folk music. The
members of the group are Cesar Cui, Alexander Borodin, Mily Balakirev, Nikolai Rimsky
Korsakov and Modest Mussorgsky.
Pictures at an Exhibition was written for piano in 1874 and later transcribed for
orchestra in 1922 by Maurice Ravel, illuminating the spirit of each piece with descriptive
tone color. The work consists of ten musical portraits bound together by a promenade
theme that recurs periodically, depicting a gallery-goer strolling between paintings. The
pieces are inspired by an exhibition of watercolor, sketches and architectural drawings of
Mussorgskys dear friend, Victor Hartmann . The music was written as a tribute in memory
of Hartmann whose death at the young age of 39 deeply affected Mussorgsky.
The suite is very appealing for children. It lends itself to interpretation in movement and in
childrens drawings and paintings. After learning the music, children can develop dances for
each composition, and sketch or paint their impressions of how the pictures might have
looked.
Discussion:
-Describe and discuss an art exhibition. Have the children describe where they have seen art
exhibited-malls, parks, galleries, museums and what they have seen-paintings, pottery,
sculpture. Tell the children that they will be looking at painting in a special way, through the
eyes of a musical composer.
PROMENADE
The promenade is a kind of musical preface in which Mussorgsky depicts
himself sauntering meter of 5/4 and 6/4 represents the viewer roving right
and left, now desultorily, now briskly, in order to observe the paintings
from different angles. (The composer was a portly man of 200 pounds.) This
theme is played four more times in the suite, in somewhat varied form as
Mussorgsky pauses to view four other Hartmann pictures.
Movement Activities:
-how does the composer feel as he promenades from one painting to
another? Proud? Afraid? Pleased? Show this in your movements
-explore various styles of walking-backwards, forwards, sideways,
angular, zig-zag, tip-toeing, lazily, hastily, as a young person, old person,
angrily, happy, as a cat, an elephant etc.
-the trumpet suggests the noble character of the stroller
-choose a leader to direct class in different ways of moving
-stroll through the art room glancing left, right, moving backward and
forward as in a gallery
-after learning the entire composition display related childrens art
Music Analysis:
-Listen to the music and tap the steady beat
-paint the melodic line in the air with your hand
-highlight the 5 pentatonic notes of the melody and let children play them
on the resonator bars-make up various pentatonic melodies with these
notes as children promenade to the rhythm
-display a picture of the trumpet, which introduces the promenade
-listen for the brass which follows and the full orchestra
-move to the ABA form of this composition
-divide the class in half and respond to the question (strings) answer
(woodwinds )style of the melody-
-compare this march music to The Royal March of the Lions in Carnival of
the Animals by Saint-Seans or the marches of Sousa and Vaughn Williams
March of the Kitchen Utensils.
playing and quarreling in the Paris park. Mussorgsky gave this the subtitle
Dispute of the Children after Play.
-move as if you were playing in a park with balls, kites, swings,
-do you hear teasing patterns in the music.
Mussorsky makes the sounds of children playing by imitating notes in the
way kids talk when playing games-which is almost like singing or when
they are making fun of each other and go nya, nya, nya , nya, nya.
Ravel imitates the childrens teasing with the nasal, plaintive sounds of
high woodwinds.
ART:
-design a garden of flowers by wetting paper and using cray pas to blur the
designs of flowers similar to Monets impressionist paintings.
-view the George Seurats Island of the Grand Jatte which portrays
children frolicking in the park.
COMPARE:
-Listen to classical compositions with similar haunting themes such as:
-Danse Macabre by Saint-Seans
-Night on Bald Mountain by Mussorgsky,
-The Banshee by Henry Cowell
-In the Hall of the Mountain King by Edvard Grieg
wheeEEE
e.e.cummings
Grades 4-8
c. Bydlo
d. Il vecchio castello
3. Children are playing tag in the park, chasing kites and balloons,
laughing and teasing while their nannies look on. The park is filled
with ponds, gardens and fountains and the sky is bright blue.
a. Promenade
c. Ballet of the Unhatched Chicks
b. Tuileries
d. The Market Place
BYDLO
Bydlo is the polish word for cattle. This piece represents a heavy
lumbering oxcart grinding through the mud. The wheels pound
ominously along as the driver sings. Listen to the steady beat in the
low strings with a forlorn melody played by the tuba.
-The children will immediately sense the enormous size of the
object portrayed by the ponderous music. Let them guess the title of
the music.
-Analyze:
-Is the pitch high or low? (low)
-Is the music light or heavy? (heavy)
The accompaniment with bass drum and timpani is a pounding lowhigh beat of :
SING
The Peddlar is a Russian folk song which describes the burdensome,
heavy load of a door-to-door salesman with his carts in the days
before supermarkets.
POETRY
Ask the children questions to stimulate their imagination and
vocabulary as they describe the musical scenes. Example: BYDLO
-is the cart near or far away?
-is it heavy or light?
-are the people going to a picnic or are they hard at work?
Choose haiku or cinquain form of poetry to describe the scene. Haiku
is the easiest for grades 1-3 and cinquain for the older grades.
Haiku: haiku is a short poem expressing a brief, vivid thought or
observation. The poem consists of three unrhymed lines.
- line one is 5 syllables
- line two is 7 syllables
- line three is 5 syllables
ox-cart coming near
example:
driver is singing out loud
he is sad and lonely
Cinquain: A cinquain is an unrhymed poem of 5 lines:
-line one has 2 syllables, a one word subject
-line two has four syllables, one or two words defining the
subject. (adjectives)
-line three has 6 syllables, three or four words implying
movement. (adverbs)
-line four has 8 syllables with two or three words
conveying or evoking emotions related to the subject
Y R
D K
R A
O T D
Y P M O O
BYDLO
K O
EXHIBIT
MARKET
PROMENADE
CHICK
TUILERIES
BABA YAGA
GREAT GATE
PICTURES
GNOME
Shel Silverstein
ORCHESTRATION
The orchestration for the music consists of 2 flutes and piccolo,2
oboes and English horn, 2 clarinets and bass clarinet, 2 bassoons and
contra-bassoon, alto saxophone, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones
and tuba, timpani, bass drum, cymbals, snare drum, triangle, tam-tam,
whip, celesta, xylophone, glockenspiel, 2 harps, rattle, chimes and
strings.
Draw a line from the instruments name to their picture
Trombone
Violin
Trumpet
Bass Drum
Flute and Piccolo
Triangle
Cymbals
French Horn
Tuba
Clarinet
Bassoon
INSTRUMENTATION
Choose and circle the instrument which plays the main
melody in each piece.
Promenade:
Tuileries:
violin
strings
trumpet
high woodwinds
Bydlo:
Castle:
tuba
violin
tuba
piccolo
xylphone
flute
saxophone
flute
percussion
flutes
cello
brass
low strings
flute
trumpet
flutes
bassoon
solo violin
full orchestra
guitar
saxophone
piccolo
brass
strings
twice
three times
smooth
very quickly
sadly
unsteady
xylophone
strings
guitar
2 and 3
11 and 12
forte (loud)
10. Where would you most likely hear this kind of music?