Wiener Philharmonic Orchestra , Valery Gergiev - Mussorgsky: Pictures at an Exhibition, Night on the Bare Mountain (2002)

Valery Gergiev's absorbing traversal of Pictures at an Exhibition stresses composer Mussorgsky's elemental sensibility over Ravel's urbane orchestration. The conductor achieves this by encouraging the Vienna Philharmonic brass to play up their characteristically broad sonority, especially from the elemental choralelike writing in Catacombae until the concluding Great Gate at Kiev's shattering climax. Some of the conductor's rubatos, however, seem grafted on rather than genuinely felt, like the arch clarinet ritard in Tuileries and the overphrased string legatos that bog down The Old Castle's basic pulse. Philips' spacious sonics convey a palpable concert hall ambience (this is, after all, a live recording), yet lack the dynamic impact and vivid detail one still hears from the benchmark Reiner and Szell editions. As a result, Night on the Bare Mountain's swirling momentum sounds diffused and dramatically flat. The Khovanshina Prelude and Gopak, though, make delightful fillers. --Jed Distler