Berlioz, Brahms & Mussorgsky/Ravel: May 15-17, 2026
- 6 hours ago
- 8 min read
Hector Berlioz
Rákóczi March
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Hector Berlioz (1803-1869) was a French composer, conductor, writer, and notoriously obsessive stalker. For more insight into that last piece of his personal puzzle, check out the story behind his Symphonie Fantastique. If you like a good trashy drama or semi scripted reality TV you won’t be disappointed. But I digress! Berlioz is most well known for that symphonic work, other large scale symphonic and operatic works, and for his contributions to the study of orchestration - the choices that composers make about assigning specific instruments or combinations of instruments to the notes they dream up in order to achieve certain colors or textures of sound. He also had spectacularly boofy hair.
About the Music:
Berlioz composed his version of the Hungarian “Rákóczi March” in 1846 while on a concert tour in Budapest in a nod to the local community there as a way to ingratiate himself and his music to Hungarian audiences. It was an an immediate hit and despite many other composers making their own adaptations later on, his is the most frequently performed instrumental version of that tune.
The basic melody dates back to the mid 18th century and began its life as a folk song celebrating the people of Hungary rising up against oppression. The instrumental version - the March - was established in the early 19th century and eventually became an unofficial anthem for Hungary.
In addition to using it as a standalone composition, Berlioz incorporated a slightly altered version in his large scale symphonic and choral “concert opera” work The Damnation of Faust, which further cemented Berlioz’s versions as the most popular and often performed.
Other composers that have used the March in their music include: Franz Liszt, Béla Bartók, Johann Strauss, Jr., Johannes Brahms, and Zoltán Kodály. Even super famous pianist Vladimir Horowitz made his own variation arrangement using the Liszt and Berlioz versions as inspiration.
Berlioz’s version is widely used not only in concert performances but also for special occasions, weddings, and military functions. He may not have conceived that this would happen far into the future, but he definitely knew he had an appreciative audience and a success on his hands as he wrote in his memoir about those first performances, “…the hall was shaken by unprecedented shouting and stamping of feet. ... We had to start again but on the second occasion, too, the audience could hardly or not at all control themselves, just like on the first occasion.”
A typical performance lasts about 4 1/2 minutes.
Resources:
Johannes Brahms
Piano Concerto No. 2
About the composer:
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) was a German composer, pianist, and conductor of the mid Romantic era. He is sometimes grouped with Johann Sebastian Bach and Ludwig van Beethoven as one of “The Three B’s” of classical music, a comment which has been attributed to the 19th century conductor Hans von Bülow who, let’s face it, probably wanted to be the fourth B writing in a letter "You know what I think of Brahms: after Bach and Beethoven the greatest, the most sublime of all composers.”
Brahms was a ground breaking composer who meticulously studied the works of those other "B guys” and fearlessly (although somehow also deeply self critically) incorporated those earlier styles and techniques into his music even as he experimented with boundary pushing ideas about the use of complex rhythms and dissonant harmonies. He composed multiple large scale symphonic works, choral works, and concertos, loads of art songs, and a slew of incredible chamber music pieces which further cemented his reputation as an extension of Bach and Beethoven.
About the music:
Brahms composed Piano Concerto No. 2 between 1878 and 1881, laboring with it over a period of 3 years and finishing it more than 20 years after his Piano Concerto No. 1. He gave the premiere as the soloist in Budapest the same year he finished it, and it found immediate success with audiences there which sent him touring it over the next few years to Leipzig, Hamburg, Graz, and Vienna.
The concerto is quite large in scope and scale, clocking in at around 50 minutes over the course of 4 movements and using a substantial orchestra of winds in pairs, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, timpani, and strings. Of special note, the first movement features a horn call at the opening which states the melodic material that informs the entire rest of the concerto, and the slow third movement features a beautiful extended cello solo.
The four movements are as follows:
Allegro non troppo (Lively tempo, not too much)
This first movement follows Classical era structures for harmonic development, if you’re the kind of nerd that like knowing such things… :)
Allegro appassionato (Lively tempo, passionate)
This movement is a scherzo (playful joke) with a contrasting darker middle section.
Andante (Walking tempo)
In addition to the unusual use of extended cello solo, Brahms also experiments with harmonic structure in this movement, taking listeners to sonic destinations that in the mid-late 19th century were quite surprising and unusual. Not so much now to our contemporary 21st century ears, but still pretty good nerd stuff to know about!
Allegretto grazioso - Un poco più presto (Lively-ish graceful - A little faster)
This is the most unusual movement of the 4. Here Brahms plays around with no less than 5 different themes over 5 distinct sections of music. The first two themes appear in the first section, which begins with a quote from the final movement of Mozart’s 27th piano concerto. Maybe he can get special dispensation to be one of “the B’s”…
The second section introduces the remaining three themes, including one with a Hungarian style rhythm. The third and fourth sections are a sort of varied repetition of sections one and two, and the fifth section is a final coda built on the main theme with a lively conversation between the orchestra and the solo piano to finish it off.
A typical performance of Piano Concerto No. 2 lasts about 50 minutes.
Resources:
Modest Mussorgsky
Pictures at an Exhibition
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Modest Mussorgsky 1839-1881 was a Russian composer of the late Romantic stylistic era. He is most influential as a member of the Russian composers group nicknamed “The Five” or “The Mighty Handful”, and was known for hyping a Russian national musical identity independent from some of the established practices and traditions of Western European “classical” music. Mussorgsky was especially interested in Russian folk tales and national history and, as with Pictures at an Exhibition, elevating the work of other Russian artists.
About the Music:
Mussorgsky composed Pictures at an Exhibition in 1874. In its original version it is a virtuosic suite for solo piano. It has since been arranged and orchestrated by numerous composers who found it engaging and inspirational.
French Modernist composer Maurice Ravel’s 1922 orchestration is by far the most frequently performed.
Pictures at an Exhibition is a ten movement work with a Promenade theme periodically inserted between movements. Each movement depicts a painting in a special memorial exhibition by Mussorgsky’s close friend and artistic ally, Viktor Hartmann. Paintings from 5 of the ten movements have been identified and still exist. The others are lost or were not identified. The interstitial Promenades indicate movement through the gallery, each at their own pace and with their own mood. In this way the listener is taken on a journey through the exhibition, possibly walking in Mussorgsky’s shoes. The Promenade theme is also woven into some of the movements, with the most famous example being the final movement The Bogatyr Gates of Kiev.
The piece begins with a Promenade featuring solo trumpet and the brass instruments in a proud and welcoming character.
Movement 1 - Gnomus (The Gnome) - is in a lumpy and inconsistent 3/4 time and is quite gruff and occasionally slimy.
The second Promenade is much more tender, beginning with the French horn and answered by the woodwinds.
Movement 2 - Il Vecchio Castello (The Old Castle) - is in a lightly swinging 6/8 and features evocative solos by the bassoon, saxophone, and English horn.
The third Promenade brings back the solo trumpet, this time heralding the engagement of the whole orchestra.
Movement 3 - Tuileries (Children's Quarrel after Games) - is based on a painting of the Jardin de Tuileries near the Louvre in Paris. The music is quick and mocking, focusing on the children’s game play.
Movement 4 - Bydlo (Cattle) - features a plodding orchestra and a beautiful tuba solo which depict a ox drawing a heavy cart from far away, passing close by, and disappearing in the distance. At the peak of this large crescendo the clattering of the oxcart wheel is suggested with the snare drum.
The fourth Promenade is dark and introspective, beginning in the woodwinds and then spreading into the full orchestra. It goes straight into the 5th movement.
Movement 5 - Ballet of Unhatched Chicks - Mussorgsky depicts strange fledgling costumed dancers with humorous cheeps, chirps, and trilling in the higher instruments of the orchestra.
Movement 6 - "Samuel" Goldenberg and “Schmuÿle" - is based on two different portrait paintings. Mussorgsky uses the low instruments of the orchestra to illustrate an imposing figure, and high repeated notes in the trumpet to represent a figure of smaller stature, possibly chiding.
Movement 7 - Limoges. The Market. (The Great News) - is a fast paced piece that whizzes around the orchestra, suggesting gossip in the marketplace. It moves at breakneck speed and smashes right into the 8th movement.
Movement 8 - Catacombs. With the Dead in a Dead Language. - is a two part movement first featuring the brass depicting the Roman catacombs of Paris and then finishing with the use of the Promenade theme for “Cum mortis in lingua mortua” (With the Dead in a Dead Language). The brass chords in Catacombs suggest the vastness and darkness of the spaces, and the use of the Promenade music in the second part brings the observer directly into the painting. This is the only painting in the series that includes a self portrait of Hartmann, making Mussorgsky’s choice to use the Promenade music here even more clever and poignant.
Movement 9 - The Hut on Hen’s Legs (Baba-Yaga) - is based on a painting of the witch Baba-Yaga’s hut on hen’s legs in a clock shape. Mussorgsky writes an A-B-A form such that the A sections are terrifying and the B section is super creepy.
Movement 10 - The Bogatyr Gates - provides a splashy and triumphant version of the Promenade theme alternating with a Russian Orthodox chant which builds to a massive bright hopeful finish.
A typical performance of the Ravel orchestration lasts about 35 minutes.
Resources:
🎉EXTRAS! 🎉
Colorado Symphony violinist Karen Kinzie shares a personal story about Pictures:
Pictures at an Exhibition is so popular it can be found in the wild... One robust example is the 1971 Emerson, Lake, and Palmer live album of their progressive rock arrangement with lyrics!