PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION by Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky (1839-81) SOME PERSONAL NOTES BY ROB BAXTER: When I first set out to produce Pictures at an Exhibition for the Amiga I had no idea that it would develop into such a massive project! My original intention had been to produce a self-contained collection on one disk (like my previous Amiga disks), but very early on in the preperation of "Pictures" it became clear to me that the sheer number of "instruments" called for by my arrangement meant that I would have to expand the set to cover two disks. An obvious solution would have been to "crunch" all the files - a nice idea, not only would it allow me to cram more stuff onto a single disk but it would also seriously cut down on loading time for a given file. However, firstly, I'm not really sure how to crunch a Sonix piece, together with all it's instruments (thereby betraying my woeful lack of techno- skill!), secondly and more importantly, by doing so I would have "locked out" a lot of people who might want to use my Synthia instruments in their own Sonix creations. So there, I'm really just a harmless old philanthropist! (a WHAT.....?) ***** IMPORTANT ***** ~~~~~~~~~ This arrangement of Pictures at an Exhibition covers two disks. If you have only received one disk then you will not be able to enjoy the whole piece! Make sure you have got both disks. The music on these disks will run on any Amiga with a minimum of 512k of memory. It is at its best if you have a two drive system, with Pictex1 inserted into df0: and Pictex2 inserted into df1:. This allows you to listen to all of Pictures at an Exhibition with no further intervention by you. If you have a single drive system, you will be given an on- screen prompt when Disk One is finished (standard requestor, no messing!), asking you to insert Disk Two (PictEx 2). If you only have a single drive system, the requestor that will appear at the end of Disk 1 leaves the Amiga menu bar at the top of the screen. This is messy but in no way does it interfere with your enjoyment of the music, it just slightly screws up the screen appearance! If you're fussy about such things, here's a tip to all single drive users. Swap from Disk 1 to Disk 2 while the final part of Disk 1 (Samuel Goldenberg & Schmuyle) is still playing. This will avoid the nasty menu bar coming along to clutter up your screen! Two drives, no problem! Just a brief note about the f3 filter option. As on my other disks, when you boot up, the Amiga's internal filter is disabled (unless you have an A1000). Pressing f3 will toggle the filter between off and on. Turning the filter off greatly reduces aliasing, but makes the overall sound very muddy! I strongly recommend that the filter be left OFF!! (NOTE - please do not try to press f3 once you have elected to play the music as it will not work and could mess up the printing on the screen. f3 should only be selected - if at all - from the main startup menu screen!) -------------------------------- Unlike my previous disks, there is no option to listen to individual pieces of music - I felt that Pictures should only be heard as a single continuous entity. Of course, if you have a copy of SONIX, you can load up individual files at your leisure if you wish to hear sections in isolation. To preserve the flow as much as possible and keep disk access to a minimum I have, wherever practical, realised two or even three sections of Pictures in a single file. This presents its own difficulties, not least of which is the different tempo requirements and time signatures which must, somehow, be executed during one .smus file in SONIX. The other main difficulty is the number of "instruments" which must be loaded to cater for such a multiple file, each piece of music within a multiple file needs its own unique set of instruments (apart from such common requirements as strings or brass etc.). This puts heavy demands on memory (and file loading time, for which I apologise), a lot of SYNTHIA instruments can use up a lot of RAM! For the first time I am supplementing my SYNTHIA-generated sounds with sounds and effects created using the SONIX "Analog Synthesiser". One of the effects which I wanted to include in my version of Pictures was that of "glide" or "portamento". SYNTHIA, despite its superb facilities in other respects is quite unable to duplicate that effect satisfactorily, so I turned to the SONIX synth which has an excellent portamento capability. Up until now, I had only used SONIX as a means for putting my scores together and for adding expression to my SYNTHIA instruments via the powerful "RFF" sample enhancing facility. As I began to work seriously with the Analog Synth I learned that it was, despite its simple controls, a very powerful musical tool. As I progressed with Pictures I began to incorporate more and more Analog effects into the fabric of the music, developing from simple glide effects into more and more complex and telling voices. The Analog voice is first heard in "The Gnome" where it provides a simple gliding call to the slow section, giving it something of a "fifties Science Fiction" feel! Its power begins to become apparent during Bydlo but one must wait for the closing piece, "The Great Gate of Kiev" to hear the Analog Synthesiser produce some of the most rousing sounds in the whole set! Perhaps the most compelling reason for using the Analog Synth is that it is quite economical on memory! On a disk, an Analog file only uses up a mere 512 bytes - this is because you are only saving a short set of parameters for "setting up" the Analog Synth (the Synth proper is incorporated into SONIX itself, and also into the "PLAY" program which I use to perform the finished music outside of SONIX). When the SONIX/PLAY Analog Synth is "activated" (by loading a parameter file), it only needs a few kilobytes of RAM in which to work, so it is an invaluable tool when you wish to create music with a rich palette of tone colours. Despite my obvious (and newly found) enthusiasm for the SONIX Analog Synthesiser I would still suggest restraint in its use! A piece of music created entirely using the Analog Synth would, I imagine, eventually sound rather dull (although I don't rule such a venture out entirely!). It is at its very best when used in combination with the more complex sounds produced by SYNTHIA, or with imaginatively sampled sounds obtained via a digitizer. ABOUT THE MUSIC: Pictures at an Exhibition was composed by Mussorgsky in 1874 in memory of his friend, the painter and architect Victor Hartmann. It represents, in musical terms, a stroll around a gallery in which Hartmann's paintings and drawings are on display - each piece within the work reflecting the impression made on the composer by the various exhibits he encountered during his visit to the gallery. The main themes are as follows (PRESS SPACE): PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION: 1. THE GNOME - a limping dwarf. 2. THE OLD CASTLE - a minstrel plays at the castle gates. 3. TUILERIES - Children play and quarrel in the Tuilerie gardens. 4. BYDLO - A Polish Ox-Cart on enormous wheels. 5. BALLET OF THE CHICKS IN THEIR SHELLS. 6. SAMUEL GOLDENBERG & SCHMUYLE - Two Polish Jews, one rich, one poor, in a burlesque arguement. 7. LIMOGES - A busy marketplace. 8. CATACOMBAE and CON MORTUIS IN LINGUA MORTUA - The catacombs of old Paris. 9. THE HUT ON FOWL'S LEGS - The hut of the death-witch of Russian folklore, Baba-Yaga. 10. THE GREAT GATES OF KIEV - The gate of the ancient Slav city of Kiev as projected by Hartmann. In addition to the above there is a prelude entitled "Promenade" which also occurs in several variations throughout the work. The recurrance of this distinctive motif serves to represent the personality of the composer, his moods and thoughts as he moves from picture to picture. Mussorgsky wrote Pictures at an Exhibition for solo piano, but there have been many attempts to "improve" on the original, with orchestrations by Ravel, Henry Wood, Walter Goehr and Tushmalov. Ravel's interpretation becoming by far the widest known and it is possible that it is only because of Ravel that the work remains popular today. However, in recent years, the original piano version by Mussorgsky himself has begun to gain the recognition it so richly deserves. Mussorgsky knew what he was doing! The "tradition" of interpreting Pictures at an Exhibition for new media continues into the late Twentieth Century. Older Amigans may remember the remarkable rock interpretation by Emerson Lake and Palmer in the early Seventies, notable for its blending of unaltered passages from Pictures (especially the repeated Promenade) with unashamed rock and roll and flashy keyboard pyrotechnics! This version is also memorable for its pioneering use of the modular Moog synthesiser in a live rock concert setting - not a prospect for the faint hearted - but pulled off with panache by Keith Emerson! Later on in the seventies, the Japanese synthesiser musician Isao Tomita released an almost faithful version of Pictures, again using the Moog synthesiser. In addition to the Moog, Tomita also employed the Melotron (anyone remember the Melotron?) which was a sort of clunky mechanical ancestor of the modern sampling "synth" (a curse be upon them!), which used tape loops of pre-recorded orchestral instruments or choirs. This gave the Tomita version a very orchestral sound which owed a great deal to Ravel. So here we are at the start of the Nineties, with what I believe to be the first version of Pictures at an Exhibition for unaccompanied microcomputer! Although I've used a lot of very colourful electronic tonalities in this arrangement, I've actually taken the music directly from the original scoring for solo piano so this version stands at the borderline between a simple piano reading and a full blown orchestration! I hope you enjoy listening to it. ROB BAXTER. MARCH 1990 THANKS GO OUT TO ALL THE FOLLOWING: My mum for making me possible; The legendary PSW for making a lot more things possible; Dave Parkinson for sending me the Stockhausen tapes; Ian Linacre for opening my eyes (ears?) to what this lovable little micro could do; 17 Bit Software for flying the flag (BIG BIG thanks there!!); Alistair Brimble for some of the best SONIX work ever. And my four cats, Pascal Catlump the mother superior, Mr. Saunders the prodigal son, Whicker- Basket the emotional sponge and Rottweiller the young pretender. AND SPECIAL THANKS TO THESE PEOPLE WHO WILL PROBABLY NEVER KNOW! Harry Olson & Herbert Belar for modularity, Bob Moog for putting it all in a box, Wendy Carlos for opening up that box, Max V. Matthews for giving the computer a voice, Commodore Amiga for a computer (that didn't have six zeros in its price!) capable of singing with that voice and "The Other Guys Software" for finally putting that voice on a disk and calling it SYNTHIA! Oh, and Jeff Minter for releasing Trip-a-Tron on the Amiga (a garland of Martian Fire Flowers for that one!). ALSO AVAILABLE BY ROB BAXTER FROM 17 BIT - CLASSIX1 - Music by J. S. Bach (17 Bit Disk 448) CLASSIX2 - Music by J. S. Bach, G. F. Handel J. Pachelbel (17 Bit Disk 540) Am I the only person doing serious classical music on the Amiga? -----oOo----- QUASI-HISTORICAL POSTSCRIPT... I said above that this is the first version of Pictures at an Exhibition arranged for a solo micro... That is actually not true! Back in 1987 I produced a full arrangement of Pictures as a demo piece for Rainbird's "Advanced Music System" on the Amstrad CPC series of 8 bit micros. The Amstrad's sound chip left a lot to be desired but that early version of Pictures can be considered to be a dress rehearsal for the considerably more ambitious arrangement which you now have! -----oOo----- VERY IMPORTANT BIT OF ADVICE: IF YOU MAKE BACKUPS OF THESE DISKS, PLEASE ENSURE THAT THE COPIES ARE NAMED PICTEX1 AND PICTEX2, LIKE THE ORIGINALS, OTHERWISE THEY WILL NOT WORK!!!