I was seated at the piano, playing for the first time the last piece in Moussorgsky’s Pictures At An Exhibition. It’s a majestic and stately piece for one player, called “The Great Gate of Kiev,” with some awkward parallel octaves in the left hand, but most of it is a series of chords, not too difficult until near the end.
It gets difficult in the 13th measure before the end, because Moussorgsky (who died on this date in 1881) calls for the player to play three grace notes, followed by 11 simultaneous whole notes, five with the right hand and six with the left hand. Moussorgsky expects both of the player’s hands to span two octaves each. That’s four to five more white keys than the typical hand can span.
He calls for three grace notes and another 11 simultaneous whole notes in the next measure, and again three measures after that.
Most of Moussorgsky’s customers don’t have 11 fingers. Nor can they span two octaves with each hand. This isn’t the only reason that Moussorgsky doesn’t have the market share of Tchaikovsky or Prokofiev, but it sure doesn’t help.
Comments
4 responses
Reading this post sent WWP back to listen again to his favorite recording of “Pictures,” a “two-fer” with Vladimir Ashkenazy on piano and then Ashkenazy conducting the Philharmonia Orchestra. The piano version is a daring and spine-tingling rush of sound and sublimity. Absolutely brilliant.
I have a recording of Ashkenazy playing Mozart, which always leaves me marveling at his articulation. In the meantime I’m also working on a Chopin waltz, which has some measures for which six fingers on a hand would be useful, but at least Chopin doesn’t demand that I use them simultaneously.
My husband (who can only pick out the Marine Corps Anthem on the piano) can reach a 13th without effort. I can barely reach a 9th, stretching, and I was the one with the years of lessons. **sigh**
I can do 10ths, slowly, but not 11ths. To do 13ths is impressive, though there’s not much call for them.
I felt gloomy yesterday when I heard as background music Mozart’s piano sonata no. 3 (K.545), played twice as fast as I can play it. Then after some practice last night I got up to that speed, mainly by leaving out some of the notes.