This Sunday May 24th Darren Hellwege will feature a recording of Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" on "The Heavyweights." While both the original for piano and the Ravel arrangement for orchestra are still popular, the artist whose death inspired Mussorgsky's piece is not nearly as well-known.
The painter Viktor Hartmann was close friends with Mussorgsky and shared his Russian nationalism. Shortly after his death at just 39, an exhibition of Hartmann's work was hung by the Imperial Academy in St. Petersburg. It wouldn't have been predicted that the paintings would be lost to history while Mussorgsky's tribute would live on, but that's what happened.
You can click here to learn more about Hartmann and see some of the work of Mussorgsky's friend and the inspiration for this work:
When Art Meets Music: Picturesque Walk through a 19th C. Russian Gallery from Artes Magazine
