ArtView November 2015 | Page 42

https://shop.abc.net.au/products/tedeschi-s-mussorgsky-pictures-at-an-exhibition-cd that are positive and love the ones that are negative, so it's very complicated. But so far I have been pleased with both the recording and the performances, and the reviews have been positive. That's the short answer. I think you're a bit hard on yourself, but if you could start off by maybe describing a little bit about Pictures at an Exhibition, and what you see the piece to be. Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition is one of the greatest, one of the most iconic, one of the most statuesque, but also one of the most complex pieces of music in classical music. It was recently voted at number 10, the tenth most popular piece in classical music. Which is an enormous testament to the fact that not only did it speak to people when it was written, but it speaks to people equally today. It's a piece that comprises nine distinct movements (I think it's nine, I haven't actually counted them, you'd think that I would have counted them) and it's a piece that is many things, it's not just one thing. It is the love of visual art, the love of good visual art but through the eyes of a musical genius; it's also an illustration of the culture at a particular point in time. It's an illustration of a culture that is really like a person who is stepping on a borderline, it's the old world meets the new, and Mussorgsky in 1875 was poised at this meeting point, at this chasm, between the old world and the new. But it's also a testament and an illustration to humanity in general, it's