music --> religion --> trust --> civilization

The cognitive capacity and drive toward holding religious / spiritual beliefs (though not necessarily the beliefs themselves) underlie the foundation of society. Human organization could not have come into existence in the absence of religious beliefs. Societies, by necessity, are built upon orderliness, organization, and cooperation. In many cooperative undertakings, such as building granaries, fending off invaders, plowing fields, providing irrigation, and establishing a social hierarchy, members of society must accept certain propositions as true, even if they are not directly verifiable. Preparing food in a certain way allows us to escape toxins in the food. A leader asserts that a neighboring tribe is planning to attack and we need to either prepare a defense or launch a preemptive strike. A wait-and-see approach is potentially calamitous—we need to act on faith.

Religions trained us and taught us to accept society-building, interpersonally bonding propositions. Ceremonies with music reaffirm the propositions, and the music sticks in our heads, reminding us of what we believe and what we have agreed to. Music during ritual is designed, in most cases, to evoke a “religious experience,” a peak experience, intensely emotional, the effects of which can last the rest of a person’s life. Trance states can occur during these experiences, resulting in feelings of ecstasy and connectedness. Because the sacred belief is associated with the ecstatic state (and belief becomes truth), it becomes reconfirmed in the experiencer’s mind, with the music acting as an agent for reconfirmation every time it is played, ad infinitum. The emotion marks the belief. Three emotions in particular are associated with religious ecstasy: dependence, surrender, and love. These same three emotions are believed innately present in animals and human infants and were no doubt present in humans before religion gave them a system for expression and indeed for uplifting thoughts in self-conscious adults.

It is especially true that a cornerstone of contemporary society is trust and the ability to believe in things that are not readily apparent, such as abstract notions of justice, cooperation, and the sharing of resources implied by civilization. Indeed, modern technological civilization requires that we trust millions of things we cannot see. We have to trust that airline mechanics did their jobs in tightening all the bolts, that drivers on the road will keep a safe distance and stay within the lines, that food-processing plants observe health and hygiene codes. We simply cannot verify all these propositions directly more than the religious can verify the existence of God. The fundamental human ability to form societies based on trust, and to feel good about doing so is intimately linked to our religious past and spiritual present.

If love is viewed only narrowly as romantic love, then it is probably not a cornerstone in the creation of human nature. But love in its larger sense sweeping, selfless commitment to another person, group, or idea the most important cornerstone of a civilized society. It may not have been important for the survival of our species as hunter-gatherers and nomads, but it was essential for the establishment of what we think of today as human society, what we regard as our fundamental nature. Love of others and of ideals allowed for the creation of systems of courts, justice that is meted out to all members of society equally (without regard to financial status or race), welfare for the poor, education. These fixtures of contemporary society are expensive in terms of time and resources; they work because we believe in them, and are willing to give up personal gain to support them.

- Daniel Levitin

why we listen to sad music

When we are sad, many of us turn to sad music. Why would that be? On the surface of things, you might expect that sad people would be uplifted by happy music. But this is not what research shows. Prolactin, a tranquilizing hormone, is released when we’re sad. Sorrow does have a physiological purpose and it may be an adaptive response, which is to help us conserve energy and reorient our priorities for the future after a traumatic event. Prolactin is released after orgasm, after birth, and during lactation in females. A chemical analysis of tears reveals that prolactin is not always present in tears—it is not released in tears of lubrication of the eye, or when the eye is irritated, or in tears of joy; it is only released in tears of sorrow. Sad music allows us to “trick” our brain into releasing prolactin in response to the safe or imaginary sorrow induced by the music, and the prolactin then turns around our mood.

And aside from the neurochemical story, there is a more psychological or behavioral explanation for why we find sad music consoling. When people feel sad or suffer from clinical depression, they often feel alone, cut off from other people. They feel as though no one understands them. Happy music can be especially irritating because it makes them feel even more alone, less understood. When we are sad and hear a sad song, we typically find it comforting. “Basically, there are now two of you at the edge of the cliff,”says Ian Cross. “This person understands me. This person knows what I feel like.” That connection—even to a stranger—helps the process of recovery, for so much of getting better seems to rely on feeling understood. A sad song brings us through stages of feeling understood, feeling less alone in the world, hopeful that if someone else recovered so will we.

- Daniel Levitin

power of poetry

How are Homerian epics, or the long oral histories and ballads of the Yugoslavians, the Gola, or the ancient Hebrews, remembered? Psychologists Wanda Wallace and David Rubin, among others believe that the mutually reinforcing, multiple constraints of songs are crucially what keeps oral traditions stable over time. In most cases, it turns out, the songs are not remembered verbatim, word for word. Rather, broad outlines of the story are remembered, perhaps using visual imagery, and structural constraints of the song are memorized. This is a much more efficient use of memory than pure rote memorization of the words, using up far fewer mental resources. The importance of form in poetry, and in song, is that form is the critical feature that helps to recall lyrics.

The mutually reinforcing, multiple constraints that help us to remember song lyrics are principally rhyme, rhythm, accent structure, melody, and cliches, along with various poetic devices such as alliteration and metaphor.
The rhyming scheme we find in most songs constrains the words that can appear in the last position of rhyming lines. Even though there may exist several words rhyming with the correct word, semantic constraints will prevent most of those words from working in the context of the song.

- Daniel Levitin

context matters

Original

Parody

packaging matters

The point is that we don't really understand the role expectations play in the way we experience and evaluate art, literature, drama, architecture, food, wine--anything really. The packaging, the social environment, the narrative surrounding the product matter a lot.

Expectation is an important part of the way we experience music. Joshua Bell told me that it takes an appropriate setting to help people appreciate a live classical music performance. The listener needs to be sitting in a comfortable, faux velvet seat, and surrounded by the acoustics of a concert hall. And when people adorn themselves in silk, perfumes and cashmere, they seem to appreciate the costly performance much more.

“What if we did the opposite experiment?” I asked. “What if we put a mediocre player in Carnegie Hall with the Berlin Philharmonic? The expectations would be very high but the quality would not. Would people discern the difference would their pleasure be quashed?” Bell thought for a moment. “In this case,” he said, “the expectations would triumph over the experience.” Furthermore, he said he could think of a few people who were not great violinists but received wild praise because they were in the right environment.

Across many domains of life, expectations play a huge role in the way we end up experiencing things. Think about the Mona Lisa. Why is this portrait so beautiful, and why is the woman’s smile mysterious? Can you discern the technique and talent it took for Leonardo da Vinci to create it? For most of us the painting is beautiful, and the smile mysterious, because we are told it is so. In the absence of expertise or perfect information, we look for social cues to help us figure out how much we are, or should be, impressed, and our expectations take care of the rest.

Alexander Pope once wrote: “Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed.” To me, it seems that Pope’s advice is the best way to live an objective life. Clearly, it is also very helpful in eliminating the effects of negative expectations. But what about positive expectations? If I listen to Joshua Bell with no expectations, the experience is not going to be nearly as satisfying or pleasurable as if I listen to him and say to myself, “My god, how lucky I am to he listening to Joshua Bell play live in front of me.” My knowledge that Bell is one of the best players in the world contributes immeasurably to my pleasure.

As it turns out, positive expectations allow us to enjoy things more and improve our perception of the world around us. The danger of expecting nothing is that, in the end, it might be all we’ll get. The danger of expecting nothing is that, in the end, it might be all we’ll get.

- Dan Ariley

schonberg

Modern composers such as Schonberg threw out the whole idea of expectation. The scales they used deprive us of the notion of a resolution, a root to the scale, or a musical "home," thus creating the illusion of no home, a music adrift, perhaps as a metaphor for a twentieth-century existentialist existence. We still hear these scales used in movies to accompany dream sequences to convey a lack of grounding, or in underwater or outer space scenes to convey weightlessness.

tension : resolution --> contentment

tension : no resolution --> meaninglessness?

narrative : collage

construct : reality

linear : simultaneous

appropriation art

expanded consciousness

…I feel that the Sixties have not been fully understood. That is, the Sixties were looking for a fully expanded consciousness, and that's what the drugs were doing. The drugs were a means for the Sixties to expand the mind. But unfortunately the drugs turn on you. Drugs turn on you. And I think that that was one of the problems of my generation, the loss of the visions and the knowledge obtained by the most daring members of my generation through their drug experiences. They damaged their brains, and they never came back. In fact, Mick Fleetwood of Fleetwood Mac said a few months ago on Entertainment Tonight about the founders of that band that he feels very lucky to be in good condition, because when he goes to see them—he went like this [knocks on forehead]— "They're not the same people I knew once." And I think that's true of many people I know. Some of the most brilliant minds I know did not continue in academe, the ones I talk to still. The drugs gave vision, but they deprived the person of the ability to translate those visions into material form. I feel lucky I never was attracted to drugs. I am an addict of my own hormones, obviously, my own adrenalines! So, I thank God, that's why I'm alive today to be telling the story, or trying to tell the story.

So what I'm saying is that what happened in the Sixties, "the mind's liberation" in the Sixties, was something that has never been fully documented. The psychedelic element of the Sixties is a joke today, like Donovan or tie-dye shirts and so on. I'm saying it was no joke, okay? I'm saying that that was one of the most creative moments in Western history, the moment of that clash between Western religion and Eastern religion. I'm not a practicing Hindu, I'm not a practicing Buddhist, I'm not a practicing Catholic. But for me as a Catholic that coming together of all those world-religions at that moment was profoundly liberating. I feel that we hear it in Jimi Hendrix's guitar, we hear it in the music of the Sixties. That story has never been fully told. I want to do that. I can sense in my students for the last five years, I've been sensing, when I talk about the Sixties to my students, they all are listening, they're listening very intently. Something is happening. The whole Sixties thing is returning through the students of today. I feel very, very hopeful about the end of the century and the millennium, very hopeful.

- Camilla Paglia

spiritual nature of music

What is essential is that music takes us out of ourselves. It allows us to escape from our worries and desires. It transports us to a larger universe and forges a community with fellow listeners.

Fame

What is renown? A gleam of transient light,
That soon an envious cloud involves in night,
While passing Time's malignant hands diffuse
On many a noble name pernicious dews.

Petrarch speaks disparagingly about fame as a measure of being good. His criterion is permanence. (Fame is assume to be transitory).

art is hard

Nothing is of more use to man than the arts which has no utility.

- Ovid

Modern life puts us in a sort of double bind. An enormously stressful, constantly changing work and personal life is coupled with an unprecedented amount of "leisure" time. This often leaves little or no mental energy for consumption in each "free" hour. Therefore, we quite reasonably seek to fill much of our leisure time with light entertainments: things that will occupy and divert us. Although these entertainments may well have some aesthetic value, that is not why we choose them and it is not the way we are using them. A deep aesthetic experience of even the most accessible art is exhausting and consuming. Glancing at the paintings in an art exhibition or playing Mozart as background music is perhaps entertainment, but the experience is not the experience of art.

You may at this point quite reasonably say, "But I have, at least occasionally, made such an effort and I still didn't like it." How much is enough effort before I call the supposed experts' bluff?

By the time you can clearly remember details about works in a given genre, when you can compare and contrast them to other more or less closely related works, you are at least seeing the aesthetic object not only through its deviation from your expectations. If by that point the genre or style of work is still unsatisfying, it may not be for you. As universal as I believe human aesthetics to be, we are all still very different individuals. Each of us has been shaped by particular endowments and experiences. Some of us may simply be lactose intolerant when it comes to a given type of expression. I suspect, though, that once you have explored a few kinds of cuisine you may start to see what one might love even in dishes that may be too spicy for you.

I believe that the investment of time it may take to explore something really new rewards one with enormous gains. Even more than reconsidering the works you love, exploring a whole new artistic terrain is a staggeringly powerful experience. I am tempted to cite the studies about greater stimulation increasing the production of new neurons in rat brains, but that's not really the point.

If all you need to do is take a walk, a treadmill or a small park will do. But we need places like Yellowstone, Patagonia, or the Galapagos to show us the extraordinary range of nature's possibilities. So, too, our aesthetic sense can be adequately exercised most of the time with the stimulation of entertainment we enjoy and the discoveries of everyday existence. But every so often, when you've saved up your pennies and energies and want to go someplace extraordinary, you're willing to put up with the discomfort and inconvenience of traveling so you can go to someplace strange and new. That's the goal of subsidized art - to provide those really exotic locales that you may never see but that can make you dream by just being out there.

- Joshua Fineberg

real-fake

La Vie Boheme

I have no money, no resources, no hopes. I am the happiest man alive. A year ago, six months ago, I thought that I was an artist. I no longer think about it.

I am.

- Henry Miller

The insecurity and relative deprivation of the artists’ lifestyle is often described as an advantage over the staid existence of buttoned-down professionals, and in this way artists signal the superiority of their existence over both the poor and the privileged. Says Shappy, a local performer:

I don’t think [yuppies] have any creative gumption. Yes they may take chances on a business deal or an ad campaign or something stupid. . . but they don’t have the balls to put it in play in their own personal lives. And when they see people living I think they’re jealous of the artist’s lifestyle, wishing they could feel like they could be free and live on macaroni and cheese and not have to worry about these accounts and their bills and their credit cards and their SUVs, and their blah, blah, blah. You know, I think a lot of people want to be more bohemian, but they don’t want to take the chance on actually living the life as a bohemian. They’re too insecure without their credit cards.

- Richard Lloyd

The allure of Bohemia is that it provides a concentrated set of practices that enable people to engage in specific kinds of expressive actions and social theatrics. Bohemian practices are devoted not primarily to achieving useful goals (like making money) or conforming to conventional social norms (like having a “good job”). Rather, they are concerned with cultivating and displaying a unique self, and enjoying the company of like-minded others. The theatricality of bohemian life revolves around mutual displays of transgressiveness. Its dramas promote styles of seeing and being seen that celebrate deviant, untraditional, unconventional, and oppositional culture. Épater la bourgeoisie.

- Daniel Silver

Little Boxes

Night Ripper

Girl Talk - Night Ripper (2006)

We’re living in this remix culture. This is a time where any grade-school kid has a copy of Photoshop and can download a picture of George Bush and manipulate his face how they want and send it to their friends. And that’s just what they do. Well, more and more people have noticed a huge increase in the amount of people who just do remixes of songs. Every single Top 40 hit that comes on the radio, so many young kids are just grabbing it and doing a remix of it. The software is going to become more and more easy to use. It’s going to become more like Photoshop when it’s on every computer. Every single P. Diddy song that comes out, there’s going to be ten-year-old kids doing remixes and then putting them on the Internet.

But why is this good?

It’s good because it is, in essence, just free culture. Ideas impact data, manipulated and treated and passed along. I think it’s just great on a creative level that everyone is so involved with the music that they like…You don’t have to be a traditional musician. You get a lot of raw ideas and stuff from people outside of the box who haven’t taken guitar lessons their whole life. I just think it’s great for music.

- Gregg Gillis

Prosumer

Candice Breitz - King (A Portrait of Michael Jackson) (2005)

This work is based on a pretty simple premise: there are enough images and representations of superstars and celebrities in the world. Rather than creating more images of people who are already overrepresented, rather than literally making another image of a Madonna or a John Lennon, I wanted to reflect on the other side of the equation, on what goes into the making of celebrity.

The idea is to shift the focus away from those people who are usually perceived as creators so as to give some space, some room, to those people who absorb cultural products—whether it’s music or movies or whatever the case may be. And to think a little bit about what happens once music or a movie has been distributed: how it may get absorbed into the lives into the very being of the people who listen to it or watch it.

Even the most broadly distributed, most market-inflected music comes to have a very specific and local meaning for people according to where it is that they’re hearing it or at what moment in their life they’re hearing it. What goes hand in hand with the moment of reception is a dimension of personal translation.

In African and other oral cultures, this is how culture has traditionally functioned. In the absence of written culture, stories and histories were shared communally between performers and their audiences, giving rise to version after version, each new version surpassing the last as it incorporated the contributions and feedback of the audience, each new version layered with new details and twists as it was inflected through the collective. This was never thought of as copying or stealing or intellectual property theft but accepted as the natural way in which culture evolves and develops and moves forward. As each new layer of interpretation was painted onto the story or the song, it was enriched rather than depleted by those layers.

This process of making meaning may be more blatant in the practice of certain artists than it is in the practice of others. Artists who work with found footage, for example, blatantly reflect on the absorptive logic of the creative process. But I would argue that every work of art comes into being through a similar process, no matter how subtly. No artist works in a vacuum. Every artist reflects—consciously or not—on what has come before and what is happening parallel to his or her practice.

- Candice Breitz

Ravel - Pictures at an Exhibition

I. PROMENADE: Allegro giusto, nel modo russico, senza allegrezza, ma poco sostenuto

A stately stroll into the gallery, played by a solo trumpet, is the initial image. This opening theme will be heard in several guises throughout the suite, usually serving as the bridge between musical pictures. Once the trumpet’s pronouncement is complete, the other trumpets, horns, and tuba respond in an equally regal manner, the richness of the brass instruments blending to create an impressive wall of sound. This pattern of announce and respond is repeated several times as the movement unfolds. When the strings join, they add a tremendous elegance, building gradually to an expansive outburst, then pulling back as the excitement wanes. But it quickly rebuilds, heightened by glorious horn calls in the midst of the orchestra’s huge sound. A fabulous chorus featuring the brass instruments alone literally rumbles, preceding one final phrase played by the entire orchestra before the movement’s abrupt end.

II. GNOMUS: Vivo (1:39)

This portrait of a limping dwarf and his grotesque movements begins with the clarinets, bass clarinet, bassoons, contra-bassoon, violas, cellos, and basses in unison loudly blurting out an angry statement, followed immediately by the horns reacting and quickly fading away. The music seems to have trouble developing a flow; like the dwarf, its “movement” is jerky, starting and stopping, then coming to a complete halt.

A new theme, more steady but still jerky, begins featuring the flutes, oboes, and a hollow-sounding xylophone. It is haunting and creeps along deliberately, abruptly stopped by two nasty comments from the bass clarinet, bassoons, contrabassoon, horns, cellos, and basses. Mysterious sounds created by the celesta, clarinet, harp, first violins, and the violas and cellos sliding up and down their strings quietly mimic the new theme.

Slow and heavy are the key qualities as the wind instruments plod through each note, accentuated by the pounding of the bass drum, like the resounding steps of Bigfoot. The somewhat discordant sound of the winds only underlines the ugliness of this section. With each passing phrase the volume and intensity increase, eventually leading to a gripping eruption, straining to become wild. A loud clap, played by the wood block, stops everything until the bass clarinet quietly trills, restarting the mysterious theme with the xylophone. Two brassy, harsh blares from the horns, trumpets, trombones, and tuba launch a wicked race to the finish.

III. PROMENADE: Moderao commodo e con delicotezza (4:24)

It is time to stroll to another painting, and Mussorgsky returns to the first movement’s melody played initially by the horn, this time less powerful, more delicate and pensive. The oboe, clarinets, bassoon, and the flutes carry the melody for most of the movement joined only at the very end by the violins

IV. IL VECCHIO CASTELLO (THE OLD CASTLE): Andante (5:18)

Muted cellos introduce a sorrowful solo for the bassoons. The saxophone assumes the melody, its hollow tone eerier than the bassoons, languorous but not lethargic as it moves steadily, pushed by repeated notes in the cellos. The violins, also muted, stir the stillness before the oboe and saxophones share a strange, short duet.

The pace seems to slow down as the intensity diminishes until the flutes and clarinet take the lead and steadily restore the intensity. But this, too, fades away, leaving the bassoon quietly playing what had been the steady beat of the cellos introducing the muted violins. One last, sensuous saxophone solo shrouded in haze restates this movement’s main theme and fades away. The void is broken by a final cry from the saxophone, like a last gasp, that slowly dissipates.

V. PROMENADE Moderato non tanto, pesante (9:33)

The trumpet calls us to stroll to the next work joined by the lowest voices in the orchestra, cellos, basses, bass clarinet, bassoons, and contrabassoon, making this walk ponderous. When the upper strings and wind instruments are added, the mood brightens. The promenade stops suddenly and ends with a delicate three-note call.

VI. LES TUILERIES: Allegretto non troppo, capriccioso (10:00)

This delicate movement is a depiction of children and their governesses at play in The Tuileries, the famous Paris park. An octet of woodwinds starts out capriciously, the mood happy and light, especially in the passages given to the flutes and oboes. The violins change the melody and slow the pace. This section is fluid and a little quirky; an image of children playing a game of hide-and-seek is suggested. A single chime from the triangle restarts the woodwind octet and a repeat of the initial happy melody, followed by another abrupt ending.

VII. BYDLO: Sempre moderato pesante (11:10)

If you have ever wondered how a composer might portray an ox wagon with huge wheels, here’s your chance! Weight is the key, and the lower voices including the bassoons, contrabassoon, cellos, and basses accompany a tuba solo. While the tuba surprises with its melodic ability, the other instruments plod along relentlessly. When the violins, violas, and harp join, the mood lightens somewhat, but still has its restrained quality suggestive of prisoners marching, hopeful but most probably doomed. This steady march grows as more instruments are added, and when the snare drum joins, the feeling that this is a desperate death march becomes overwhelming.

Soon the march seems to move on, the sound growing softer, and the tuba resumes its sad melody, again plodding. One weak reprise by the muted, distant horn is heard, just before the movement ends, exhausted.

VIII. PROMENADE: Tranquillo (13:42)

Three flutes and two clarinets begin this tranquil reprise of the stroll music. They are replaced by the oboes and bassoons continuing this atmosphere of total calm. But there is a sudden mood swing, and the calm changes to strain and darkness. The melody stops, and this promenade ends with a short, giddy, final comment.

IX. BALLET DES POUSSINS DANS LES COQUES: Scherzino: Vivo leggiero (14:22)

Mussorgsky’s inspiration for this movement was a drawing of a scene from the ballet Trithy, oddly titled “Ballet of the Chickens in Their Shells.” The pace is fast as it scurries about, light and delicate, especially in the flutes and oboes. A sustained chord, sounding strangely like cartoon music, leads to a repeat of the movement’s first few seconds.

After the repeat the flutes and bassoons play a strange duet while the violins trill relentlessly, like chirping birds. Briefly the violins take the lead, but the unstoppable, annoying flutes reprise the movement’s opening, and the flutes, oboes, and piccolo chirpingly bring this “pecking” to an end.

X. SAMUEL GOLDENBERG UND SCHMUYLE: Andante (15:43)

There is no promenade before we encounter this depiction of a conversation between two Jewish men, one rich and one poor. The introduction is heavy, with a distinctly Slavic/Gypsy tone created by the strings, the English horn, clarinets, and bassoons, although it is the rich string sound that is predominant. A rapid-fire, sniping solo trumpet accompanied only by the oboes and clarinets contrasts with the somber opening. Sneering, the trumpet seems to be hurling insults while the horns add to the tension.

Angrily, the strings, clarinets, bassoons, and contrabassoon answer the trumpet. Now the weighty first theme and the sniping, rude second theme are heard together as the argument grows louder and continues until it is abruptly cut off. A new theme played by the oboes and first violins fills the silence; it is sullen and plaintive. Reminders of the argument crop up occasionally as this movement grinds to its conclusion.

XI. LIMOGESLE MARCHE: Allegretto vivo sempre scherzando (18:12)

Another argument, this one among women in a market, is the theme of this fast movement; from the outset the horns establish one voice, and the violins answer with another. (The violins may remind you of the “Pick a Little, Peck a Little” number from the show The Music Man.) The music is busy and flighty and seems to bounce around out of control. A sudden stop silences everyone, then the music resumes even more frantically, a truly wild scene filled with hysteria. A final race brings the argument to a screeching halt, and we are thrust directly into the next movement.

XII. CATACOMBAL SEPULCHRUM ROMANUM: Largo (19:32)

A startling change occurs as the flighty fight in the market is replaced by the ponderous reality of mortality and the catacombs. The source of this movement was a drawing of Hartmann himself exploring the Paris catacombs by the light of a lantern. The heavier instruments, primarily the trombones, tuba, and horns, solemnly announce our arrival at this hallowed burial area, The chords are sustained, swelling and receding like the music for a gothic horror movie. The only trace of light is provided by the solo trumpet and its forgiving melody slicing through the somber brass. But angrily the other brass instruments bring back the “horror movie” music. This attack quiets, and one final blast, leading to an eerie rumble from the tam-tam, ends the visit to the catacombs.

XIII. CUM MORTUIS IN LINGUA MORTUA: Andante non troppo, con lamento (21:30)

This movement bears the creepy heading “Speaking to the Dead in a Dead Language,” an image Mussorgsky conjured up by himself inspired by Hartmann’s creative spirit leading the composer to the skulls in the catacombs. He speaks to them and they slowly become illuminated from within, an interesting premise for a musical composition,

Extremely quiet, muted violins play a sustained chord introducing the oboes and English horn, who play a slowed-down variation of the original promenade theme. The violins, now joined by the violas, tremble while the bass clarinet, bassoons, contrabassoon, cellos, and basses take the melody from the oboes. The low, slow-moving voices combined with the shaky upper strings yield a creepy sound reminiscent of a graveyard scene in a horror movie.

Emerging from the haze, the oboe and clarinet begin to brighten the mood. The creepiness diminishes, replaced by tranquillity as the harp lightens the tone. One can almost see the dense fog rising, allowing the sun to shine through. Calm prevails, the movement ending softly with a sustained chord that just fades away.

XIV. LA CABANE DE BABA-YAGA SUR DES PATTES DE POULE: Allegro con brio, feroce (23:24)

There is no pause as we are catapulted into a ferocious attack highlighted by the timpani and bass drum. The Hartmann painting inspiring this movement was of a clock in the shape of the legendary Russian witch Baba-Yaga. The beginning starts and stops, seeming to build up energy, the strings, English horn, clarinets, and bassoons snapping out a series of gruff comments. Once the engine gets going, it sounds driven as if possessed, developing relentlessly until the trumpets cut through like the cavalry trying to gain control of a wild situation. But the other brass instruments angrily blare out sustained retorts and the orgiastic excitement continues unabated, eventually growing slower and heavier. Instruments drop out one by one until there is only a solo trumpet left playing a series of eight notes.

The flutes change the mood and begin a free-flowing, gossamer-like solo accompanied only by occasional comments from the bassoons and basses. Mystery abounds, especially when the tuba heavily burps its notes and the response is led by the celesta, xylophone, and harp. (This section may remind you of the music played during the witch’s-castle scene in the movie The Wizard of Oz.) As this creepy music fades away, an angular outburst from the flutes, piccolo, oboes, clarinets, xylophone, and violins abruptly snaps everything to attention. But the trembling cellos and basses, and an eerie single tam-tam crash, sap any remaining energy to reach a dead stop.

The silence is shattered by an angry interjection; this is just the first volley in a series of outbursts that reprise the section of the engine getting going. Steadily, with its vulgar blasts, the pace and intensity increase, and as before the trumpets try to cut through the wildness, but are overwhelmed by the witch’s power. The violins, screeching demonically, seem to fly up and down over their strings, ending the movement abruptly on a high note.

XV. LA GRANDE PORTE DE KIEV: Allegro allo breve. Maestoso. Con grandezza (26:42)

Without a pause between movements, the final impression begins; this time Mussorgsky drew his inspiration from an architectural design for a large gate in Kiev. The majestic melody, played loudly by the bassoons, contrabassoon, horns, trumpets, trombones, tuba, timpani, and bass drum, is reminiscent of the Promenade theme that began the work. Now, it is broad and overpowering, and when the rest of the orchestra joins in, led by the crashing cymbal, the sound is even bigger, a fitting musical portrait of the massive Russian structure it depicts.

A sudden quiet takes hold as the clarinets and bassoons play a prayer-like interlude, a tremendous contrast to the power preceding it and the explosion that follows it. Here the brass instruments dominate, while the flutes, oboes, harps, violins, and violas excitedly race through exhilarating passages. Another midphrase interruption silences this most recent eruption, replacing it with a reprise of the prayer-like calm provided by the clarinets and bassoons, with the flutes adding an angelic quality. As the interlude ends, a heavy plodding starts, the lower voices steadly alternating pulses as the second violins and violas rustle, quickening the pace, like a reawakening. The contrast of the flowing string phrases against the heavy plodding creates a bit of tension that begins to resolve when the flutes, piccolo, oboes, and clarinet sneak in. All of this leads to the reemergence of the melody, now more splendid, shining like the sun slowly coming out from behind clouds, growing brighter and brighter by the second.

As if what has already been heard was not powerful enough, there is yet another explosion with the full orchestra reprising the main theme, broader and more majestic than ever. The pace slows dramatically giving plenty of time to bask in the powerful radiance of the sound. One final quieting starts the final push to the end; gradually the sonic power rebuilds, instruments chiming in one by one until a huge explosion featuring the brass instruments takes hold. Unbelievably, the sound grows larger still in another eruption, as the tam-tam, drums, cymbals, and triangle, along with the rest of the orchestra, joyfully reach the final musical image of this stroll through the art gallery.

- Anthony Rudel