Talk:Pictures at an Exhibition (Emerson, Lake & Palmer album)

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Untitled[edit]

I believe the studio version may be the one that's also available on the Return of the Manticore box set. Lee M 02:55, 13 January 2006 (UPTC)

Unless there is some proper reason, I plan on changing the third paragraph to reflect standards. Currently, it uses "Some people say ___ is ___" to reflect the authors' own opinions.

Crowd cheers[edit]

1Jun08: It would be interesting to know the background to the performance/recording. It seems unusual for an established rock band to play an entire performance based on never-before-heard pieces. At the album opening, you hear Greg Lake announcing "we're going to give you Pictures at an Exhibition" and the crowd cheers. This seems curious - why did they cheer, was this a well-known set which ELP played a number of times before this recording? Hard to believe the audience were so familiar with classical music that they immediately understood they were going to get a rendering of Mussorgsky. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.130.74.165 (talk) 16:28, 1 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I have independently added a note on this, prior to reading this remark.

When I first heard the album 30 years ago, it seemed to me personally to indicate that this was a live version of an earlier studio recording, hence the crowd's foreknowledge and wild enthusiasm.

But, of course, that is not the case.

So, nowadays I assume that someone—I would guess Emerson as the most classical one—gave the audience an explanation / a description / a big build-up to get a crowd of rock fans excited, and we are only hearing the final line of this.

But I have never seen anyone discussing this detail anywhere.

Perhaps it's mentioned in someone's autobiography?

Varlaam (talk) 23:25, 23 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

never-before-heard pieces ??
The album was recorded live on March 26, 1971 - seven months after ELP played 'Pictures' live at the Isle of Wight Festival (August 29, 1970)!
... 'Pictures' live at the Lyceum, London on December 9, 1970 (2008 Deluxe Edition Bonus Disc) Thomas279 (talk) 16:34, 25 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

my guess is they had been playing it live on a regular basis and their fans were familiar with it..they always had a reputation for being a good live band and pretty much had a hard core cult following right from the beginning...many of the people in the audience if not most had probably seen them before and were familiar with their material. Lonepilgrim007 (talk) 00:52, 13 July 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Disambiguate the title?[edit]

As this is a notable classical piece, there are many albums called Pictures at an Exhibition — some of the Mussorgsky piano original, some (perhaps the majority) of the Ravel orchestral arrangement, at least two (this one and an electronic one by Isao Tomita) interpretations of the orchestral version. Why should this version in particular, which was originally released as a freebie accompanying Trilogy and is reckoned by many fans (including me) to be positively the worst ELP album ever, get the accolade?

I think this page should be moved to Pictures at an Exhibition (Emerson, Lake & Palmer album) and the present title should be turned into a disambiguation page. -- 217.171.129.77 (talk) 03:16, 12 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Infobox[edit]

There is something wrong with the infobox: it appears far too big (tried to view it with two different browsers, just in case). But I don't know how to fix the problem.--Mycomp (talk) 00:42, 19 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

"Studio version"[edit]

"* Although the CD lists this as being the 'medley', recorded in 1993, released on The Return of the Manticore box set and some pressings of the 1994 album In the Hot Seat, it is actually a live recording of the band's performance of 'Pictures' taking from their first Isle of Wight show - including the famous cannons being fired at the end."

Utter nonsense. The studio version from 1993, included on 'Return of the Manticore' and on the 2008 remaster of the 1972 album, is definitely NOT the Isle of Wight recording. It is a studio recording that has the band playing with an orchestra. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.65.94.150 (talk) 05:25, 14 July 2012 (UTC)[reply]

The Old Castle[edit]

I really don't see how "The Old Castle" on this album is the music of Mussorgsky's "Il Vecchio Castello." They're both in minor keys and have a kind of renaissance feel, but they don't have the same chord structure or melody. So I'm not sure why the article says that.

I WISH ELP had just arranged Mussorgsky's composition for their own instruments and band, but they didn't do that.Carlo (talk) 22:27, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The article does not say "'The Old Castle'...is the music of Mussorgsky's 'Il Vecchio Castello'". The article says it's "a heavily accelerated adaptation of the original theme" and that the entire album uses "four of the original ten pieces in Mussorgsky's suite", without specifying any one-to-one connection to "The Old Castle". It's entirely possible (and wouldn't be surprising, IMO) if they borrowed the title, but ignored the source or started with the theme of the original, but reworked it beyond any obvious recognition.

What you wish they had done is off-topic here, but a well-worn theme in art rock. - SummerPhD^v2.0 22:42, 29 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]