[SACD-R][OF] Мусоргский - Pictures at an exhibition / Картинки с выставки - (Mariss Jansons, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra) - 2009 (Classical)

Telegraph review:
A conductor such as Mariss Jansons, who invests so much energy and imagination into eliciting details and refinements from a score, is going to have a distinct advantage in conjuring up the imagery of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition. And so it proves on this live recording made in Amsterdam in 2008. But the interesting thing is that Jansons is also acutely aware that the Ravel orchestration of 1922 adds a gleaming, glamorous Gallic patina to Mussorgsky’s original, much rawer and audacious piano pieces. Whereas some interpretations tend to coarsen the edges of Ravel’s instrumental sonorities in a bid to make them sound more “Russian”, Jansons treats the music with the finesse that was one of Ravel’s hallmarks. The liner notes also point to some instances where Ravel’s treatment had a negative impact on the music’s character. Some listeners might not respond readily to a performance in which Mussorgsky is given such a coating of French polish, but it is a reminder that Ravel’s version, while initially inspired by Mussorgsky’s picture gallery, is transformed by his own orchestral palette.
Allmusic review:
In this day & age, a compact disc with a playing time of 33:02 is more than a tad short, but what is here is stunning: an account of Ravel’s orchestration of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition that reveals the grandeur of the music in a performance of tremendous vitality & a recording of stupendous immediacy. Mariss Jansons finds things in this well-known score that most conductors miss — details of articulation, phrasing & balance that often go unnoted — & brings out the work’s enormous variety of forms, moods, & colors. The Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam plays with its accustomed super virtuosity, reveling in overcoming the score’s prodigious challenges with effortless panache. RCO Live’s super audio recording captures everything in sound that puts the listener in the Concertgebouw about 10 rows back from the stage. But, really, only 33:02? Why not more Ravel or more Mussorgsky, a bit of Borodin or a slice of Stravinsky? What’s here is inestimable, but it leaves the listener eager for more.