Pictures at an Exhibition (Emerson, Lake & Palmer album)

Pictures at an Exhibition
Live album by Emerson, Lake and Palmer
Publication (s)	1971
admission	1971
Label (s)	Island Records , Manticore Records (UK) Atlantic Records (US)
Format (s)	LP
Genre (s)	Progressive rock
Title (number)	12
running time	37:56
occupation	Keith Emerson  : Hammond organs C3 and L100, pipe organ , Clavinet , Moog synthesizer Greg Lake  : vocals , bass , acoustic guitar Carl Palmer  : drums
production	Greg Lake
chronology Tarkus (1971) Pictures at an Exhibition Trilogy (1972)

Record label from Pictures at an Exhibition

Pictures at an Exhibition is the third album by British progressive rock band Emerson, Lake and Palmer . It was recorded live at Newcastle City Hall on March 26, 1971 . In December 1971 the album was at number 3 on the UK album charts.

Music and recordings

Pictures at an Exhibition contains the title piece, a free adaptation of Modest Mussorgski's piano cycle Pictures at an Exhibition , and the encore Nutrocker . The work consists of the boardwalk , the walk from picture to picture, and the pictures themselves. The boardwalk was played by Keith Emerson on the organ of City Hall.

Mussorgsky's original work consists of ten pictures, only a few of which were edited by ELP. For this, some of the originally instrumental pieces were given additional texts and thus vocal passages. Only with The Sage and a short interlude before that, a picture of its own was brought into play.

In the absence of explanatory texts and incorrect track titles on the packaging of the sound carriers, and due to incorrectly placed markers on the CDs, the pieces are sometimes misinterpreted and assigned by listeners. Here is the correct assignment:

1. Promenade : organ solo
2. The Gnome : Group (instrumental)
3. Promenade : organ with singing
4. (Interlude: short synthesizer solo - does not occur with Mussorgsky)
5. The Sage : acoustic guitar with vocals - an independent composition in the style of a medieval minstrel, apparently as a solemn introduction to The Old Castle
6. The Old Castle / Blues Variation : Group (instrumental) - after a Moog Ribbon Controller insert, the theme of The Old Castle , which is originally a worn piece, is presented at a much faster rate. The piece merges seamlessly into the variation, in which Emerson processes the theme in his typical way in a richly varied manner. The Blues Variation is not a piece of its own, but belongs to The Old Castle .
7. Promenade : group (instrumental)
8. The Hut of Baba Yaga : Group - first instrumental introduction, the introduction to
9. The Curse of Baba Yaga : is also included in the original piano piece The Hut of Baba Yaga , but here it unfolds into a rock piece with vocals, the music is largely an adaptation of the original, the instrumental finale of which is again as
10. The Hut of Baba Yaga is called.
11. The Great Gates of Kiev : group with singing - also in the original piece the last picture. The chimes of the bells indicated in the original version for piano are played here by Carl Palmer on a tubular bell , which for this purpose became part of Palmer's percussion. In the middle section you can find Keith Emerson's live organ escapades, in which he first attacks one of his two Hammond organs with knife-like objects to stop notes, places them on a corner and turns them into the loudspeaker to achieve feedback effects and them finally completely upset. In the finale, two cannons were also detonated during the premiere at the Isle of Wight Festival , which were never used again, not even on the actual recording.

The album ends with Nutrocker , a recording of Kim Fowley's rocking variation (1962) of the March of the Tin Soldiers from Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker . Pictures at an Exhibition was severely shortened in later performances, also documented on the LP In Concert from 1979. The titles The Sage / The Old Castle / Blues Variation and The Curse of Baba Yaga are missing here .

Text and album art

In addition to Greg Lake, Andy Fraser is given as a copywriter. The latter was a roadie of the band who wrote the lyrics. Greg Lake later said, "We put him on the credits, but he didn't get paid for it."

The folding cover of the LP, like that of Tarkus, was designed by William Neal . On the outside it shows empty picture frames with the titles. Inside, the frames are filled with the corresponding images, except for the one named Promenade , which were newly created for the cover and have nothing to do with the original images from Wiktor Hartmann .

reception

Allmusic's Bruce Eder wrote that the album “introduced millions of classic rock to millions, including classical listeners who for the most part viewed it as something like an armed attack.” He criticized the sound of the live recording from the early 1970s, but praised the way it played Musicians, especially Greg Lake's. He gave the album three and a half stars out of five.

Track list

page 1

1. Promenade (Mussorgsky) - 1:58
2. The Gnome (Mussorgsky / Palmer) - 4:18
3. Promenade (Mussorgski / Lake) - 1:23
4. The Sage (Lake) - 4:42
5. The Old Castle (Mussorgsky / Emerson) - 2:33
6. Blues Variation (Emerson / Lake / Palmer) - 4:22

Page 2

1. Promenade (Mussorgsky) - 1:29
2. The Hut of Baba Yaga (Mussorgsky) - 1:12
3. The Curse of Baba Yaga (Emerson / Lake / Palmer) - 4:10
4. The Hut of Baba Yaga (Mussorgsky) - 1:06
5. The Great Gates of Kiev / The End (Mussorgski / Lake) - 6:37 (End of Pictures at an Exhibition )
6. Nutrocker (Tchaikovsky, Fowley) - 4:26

CD bonus track

1. Pictures at an Exhibition (studio edition) ^* (Mussorgsky / Emerson / Lake / Palmer) - 15:28
   1. Promenade - 1:44
   2. The Gnome - 2:07
   3. Promenade - 1:46
   4. The Sage - 3:08
   5. The Hut of Baba Yaga - 1:17
   6. The Great Gates of Kiev - 5:26

^* This studio version (all other releases were previously live) from 1993 is included as a bonus track on the 2001 Remastered Edition. It was previously released in the box set The Return of the Manticore and some editions of the 1994 album In the Hot Seat .

Video

The work was presented live at the Lyceum Theater on December 9, 1970 - the debut studio album Emerson, Lake & Palmer had been released just two months earlier . A video recording of the concert (without Nutrocker ) was first published in 1973 and was later available on VHS and DVD. Passages of the video are characterized by animations (“Marvel Animation”) by Dick Preston and colorations by Laurie Atkin .

Title list of the video

1. Promenade (Mussorgsky / Arr. Emerson)
2. The Gnome (Mussorgsky / Arr. Palmer)
3. Promenade (Mussorgsky / Arr. Lake)
4. The Sage (Lake)
5. The Old Castle (Mussorgsky / Arr. Emerson)
6. Blues Variation (Emerson / Lake / Palmer)
7. Promenade (Mussorgsky / Arr. Emerson)
8. The Hut of Baba Yaga (Mussorgsky / Arr. Emerson)
9. The Curse of Baba Yaga (Emerson / Lake / Palmer)
10. The Hut of Baba Yaga (Mussorgsky / Arr. Emerson)
11. The Great Gates of Kiev (Mussorgsky / Arr. Lake)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ http://everyhit.com/
2. ↑ Pictures at an Exhibition at Allmusic (English)
3. ^ Pictures at an Exhibition (1973) in the IMDB database
4. ↑ Dick Preston on IMDB

Web links

• Reviews of Pictures at an Exhibition on the Babyblauen Seiten
• Pictures at an Exhibition at Allmusic (English)