Pictures at an Exhibition is a suite of ten pieces (plus a recurring, varied Promenade) composed in 1874 for piano by Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky (1839 - 1881), and in this case orchestrated in 1922 by Maurice Ravel (1875 - 1937), who omitted one of the promenades. The orchestrated version is so expertly done, with such a strong individual voice, that I decided to include both versions as separate entries. This is actually the first piece of classical music I listened to, in music class in high school. I have dozens of other orchestrations and transcriptions of this work on CD, but for me the Ravel is still the best. The average playing time is 27 minutes (AllMusic). I have two versions, of which I have a slight preference for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra under Carlo Maria Giulini on a Deutsche Grammophon CD.
