Label: Victor Records (Japan), VICP-63173
Style: Symphonic Rock
Country: London, England
Time: 38:20
Format: Flac Tracks 16/44,1 kHz
Size: 262 Mb
The
rush of joy from the Newcastle crowd following Keith Emerson’s opening
announcement that “We’re gonna give you Pictures at an Exhibition” is
the audio equivalent of adrenalin. From that point forward, the
floodgates of imagination are thrown wide as we take in the sights and
sounds of these musical paintings.
The trio had first premiered their
interpretation (the piece might just as well be called an inspiration)
of Mussorgsky’s masterpiece at their first official performance at the
Isle of Wight Festival. The version captured here is from a March 26,
1971 performance at the grand Newcastle City Hall. In a sense, the Hall
and its inhabitants are the invisible fourth member, adding deep
acoustics and emotions to the music that fairly approximate what it must
have felt like to be in the room.
The entire work follows the
outline of Mussorgsky’s original, alternating promenades between various
paintings. The promenades are given slightly different treatments: the
second features vocals, the third is bombastic. ELP slips a few of their
own creations into the gallery—The Sage, Blues Variation, The Curse of
Baba Yaga—and mixes them with adaptations of Mussorgsky’s pieces (The
Hut of Baba Yaga, The Gnome, The Old Castle). The song cycle culminates
with the majestic close of The Great Gates of Kiev, a dreamed-of gateway
now a gateway to dreams. Oddly, the group seems stumped for a suitable
encore, parading out the novelty Nutrocker, which seems terribly trite
after such a walk with giants.
For my money, this is one of ELP’s
best albums, one of the greatest live prog albums ever recorded, and
reason enough to classify Newcastle City Hall as an historically
important building. Though chronologically this is the band’s third
album, it is rather the firstfruits of an amazing alignment of talent
that represented perhaps the pinnacle of progressive rock when it was
first performed in 1970. The bar had been raised, the gates opened, and
the wave of prog warriors were coming to lift the fallen standard of
musical art once more. So, naturally, critic Robert Christgau gave it a
D+, begging the question of what the plus was for, since I’m sure we can
all agree on what the D means.
(progrography.com/emerson-lake-palmer/review-emerson-lake-palmer-pictures-at-an-exhibition-1971/)
01. Promenade (01:57)
02. The Gnome (04:18)
03. Promenade (01:23)
04. The Sage (04:42)
05. The Old Castle (02:33)
06. Blues Variation (04:23)
07. Promenade (01:28)
08. The Hut of Baba Yaga (01:12)
09. The Curse of Baba Yaga (04:10)
10. The Hut of Baba Yaga (01:06)
11. The Great Gates of Kiev (06:37)
12. Nutrocker (04:25)
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