Pictures at an exhibition Original piano version & orchestra version (Ashkenazy) (1986)

"Ashkenazy tells us in the notes with this CD (incidentally they are both extensive and interesting with excellent thumbnail descriptions of each picture - one day we shall, hopefully, get a record which includes reproductions) that he always thinks in terms of orchestral colour when at the keyboard, and that in making his own orchestration he has "been guided by the deeper undercurrents of this predominantly dark-coloured piece". To have his piano version and orchestration together is salutary, and the CD banding allows one to move back and forward at will. Interestingly, tempos in the orchestral performance, except for the opening "Promenade", are in all cases marginally slower...In the orchestral version he is very broad, and the scoring emphasizes the religious connotation of Mussorgsky's use of a Russian Orthodox chant...Ashkenazy's score corrects "a number of textual errors which probably resulted from his [Ravel's] use of a poor edition of the piano score." - Gramophone, [May, 1986]