Pictures at an Exhibition with Jeneba Kanneh-Mason and Orchestra of the Swan

“Mozart is the highest, the culminating point that beauty has attained in the sphere of music” wrote Tchaikovsky, a sentiment that is hard to disagree with upon hearing Mozart’s Piano Concerto No 23. The keyboard concertos are the most personal of his works, often written for himself to perform. Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition was inspired by the paintings of Viktor Hartmann. A close friendship developed between painter and composer after their first meeting in 1868 as well as a mutual devotion to the cause of intrinsically Russian art. Following the unexpected death of Hartmann in 1873 Mussorgsky wrote this bold, enchanting work which depicts the composer himself walking through an exhibition of his friend’s paintings.

*The Tchaikovsky will be a side-by-side with Warwick Schools Foundation scholars.