Baba Yaga is a witch from Slavic folklore. She lives in a spinning hut.
Baba Yaga & The Great Gates of Kiev is the ninth movement of Modest Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition”.

“For artist Wassily Kandinsky, the [‘Pictures at an Exhibition‘] cycle served as a basis for his first and only theater project, which was premiered in the German city of Dessau in 1928. Wassily Kandinsky was out to create a synthetic ‘Gesamtkustwerk‘. For him, that meant that sounds took on hues that listeners could see before their eyes as they listened to the music. It was intended to be a Gesamtkustwerk of sound, color and motion.”
~ https://www.dw.com/en/kandinsky-and-mussorgsky-what-happens-when-artists-inspire-each-other/a-19087823

1928 / Graphite, India ink, and watercolor on paper
11 4/5″x15 3/4″ / Centre Pompidou, Paris, France

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8Sep2020

National Piano Month~ September 8

Posted in National Piano Month by Christy

Pictures at an Exhibition (original piano version) by Modest Mussorgsky
“One of Modest Mussorgsky’s best friends was Viktor Hartmann, an artist who tragically died of an aneurism in 1873 at the age of 39. Two weeks after Hartmann’s death, his friends and supporters organized a major exhibition of his works at the Imperial Academy of Arts in St. Petersburg. About a year later, Mussorgsky composed ‘Pictures at an Exhibition‘. Completed in only twenty days, ‘Pictures’ was originally a set of short pieces for piano in which Mussorgsky depicted himself walking through the exhibition and contemplating Hartmann’s works.”
FROM https://houstonsymphony.org/mussorgsky-pictures/

The Hut On Fowl’s Legs (Baba-Yaga) by Viktor Hartmann

“In Russian folklore, Baba Yaga is a witch who flies through the woods on a mortar and pestle, searching for children to eat. She lives in a hut on hen’s legs that stalks the land. This movement was inspired by Hartmann’s design for an ornate clock in the shape of Baba Yaga’s hut.” [Watercolor. N/D]
FROM https://houstonsymphony.org/mussorgsky-pictures/

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Original piano version: watch on youtube

6Sep2020

Classical Music Month~ September 6

Posted in Classical Music Month by Christy

Lieder ohne Worte by Frederic, Lord Leighton

1861 / Oil on canvas / 40″x24 3/4″ / Tate Britain, London, UK

The title was suggested by a visitor to the artist’s studio, Mrs Ralph Benson,
and evokes Felix Mendelssohn‘s famous “Songs without Words“,
created for the piano between 1829 and 1845. ~ Tate Britain

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5Sep2020

Classical Music Month~ September 5

Posted in Classical Music Month by Christy

A Symphony by Moritz von Schwind

In 1852 [Schwind] “composed” A Symphony in oils, and provided the commentary on it himself:
“The whole should be imagined as the Beethoven wall of a music room…
and it is based on a composition by Beethoven, the Fantasia in C for Piano, Orchestra and Choir…”
~ https://www.wga.hu/html_m/s/schwind/symphony.html

1852 / Oil on canvas / 66 1/2″x39 2/5″ / Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen-Neue Pinakothek, Munich, Germany