Pictures at an Exhibition
was one of the seminal documents of the
progressive rock
era, a record that made its way into the collections of millions of high-school kids who never heard of composer
Modest Mussorgsky
and knew nothing of Russia's Nationalist "Five" or artist/architect
Victor Hartmann
, whose work was the inspiration for
Mussorgsky
. Chronologically, it was
Emerson, Lake & Palmer
's third LP release (they didn't regard it as an "official" album, as it was comprised of only part of a longer live performance), but for a lot of teenagers who'd missed out on the trio's self-titled debut album or resisted the unfamiliarity of
Tarkus
,
Pictures
-- which was budget-priced in its original LP release in England and America -- with its bracing live ambience and blazing pyrotechnics, was the album that put the group over, and did it with exactly the same kids who turned
Jethro Tull
's
Aqualung
and
Thick as a Brick
Yes
'
Fragile
into standard-issue accouterments of teenage suburban life. And, indeed, like the
Tull
albums, it worked on several levels that allowed widely divergent audiences to embrace it -- with the added stimulus of certain controlled substances, it teased the brain with its mix of melody and heavy
rock
, and for anyone with some musical knowledge, serious or casual, it was a sufficiently bold use of
's original to stimulate hours of delightful listening. It wasn't the first treatment of a
classical
piece in this manner by any means --
Keith Emerson
had done several previously with his earlier group
the Nice
-- but it was the first to reach a mass audience or get heavy radio play (at least of excerpts), and introduced the notion of "
" to millions of listeners, including the
community, most of whose members regarded this record as something akin to an armed assault. Those with less hidebound sensibilities appreciated
Emerson
's rollicking and delightful
"Blues Variations"
-- which bridged the gap between
Trilogy
-- and
Greg Lake
's lyrical adaptations of
"Promenade,"
"The Sage,"
"The Great Gates of Kiev."
It does some violence to
in the process, but is also the most concise, energetic, and well-realized live release in
ELP
's catalog, the hall small enough to capture the finer nuances of the playing by all three members of the trio, and especially the muscular bass work by
Lake
that keeps pushing the performance forward. It was great fun (an element missing from a good deal of
) in 1972, and it's still fun in 2005. It also made a fairly compelling case for adapting
pieces in this way --
would later succeed with adaptations of works by
Aaron Copland
Alberto Ginastera
, among others, but this would be the longest such work to find mass listenership, sufficient so that in the late '80s there would be a legitimate
organ arrangement put out by the
Dorian
label that referred to
's rendition as its linear predecessor. The early-'70s live sound is a little crude by today's standards, but the various CD upgrades from
Rhino
Sanctuary
, and Japanese
WEA
have given the recording a close, powerful sound that captures the tightness of the playing (drummer
Carl Palmer
is especially good) and makes up for any sonic inadequacies.
is the dominant musical personality here, but
(who also gets to play some
guitar) and
Palmer
get the spotlight more than enough to prevent it from being a pure keyboard showcase. ~ Bruce Eder