Pictures At An Exhibition - The Great Gate of Kiev (Finale) - Mussorgsky

Mussorgsky: Pictures at an exhibition - The great gate of Kiev (Ravel Orchestration) Berliner Philharmoniker Herbert von Karajan _______________________________________________________ Victor Hartmann The Great Gate of Kiev In 1869 Hartmann entered a competition for a gateway to be erected at Kiev in commemoration of what Russian writers of the period, working under the watchful eye of the Imperial censor, refer to circumspectly as “the event of April 4, 1866”. The date on which the Emperor Alexander II escaped assassination at Kiev. Hartmann’s drawing represented his project for a gate in the city of Kiev in the massive, old Russian style. The archway rests on granite pillars, three quarters sunk in the ground. Its head is decorated with a huge headpiece of Russian carved designs, with the Russian state eagle above the peak. To the right is a belfry in three stories with a cupola in the shape of a Slav helmet. Hartmann’s design for the Great Gate of Kiev caused a sensation and he himself regarded it as his finest work. It has been reproduced more often than any of his designs and it inspired Mussorgsky to write one of his most magnificent pages. But, the competition was called off and Hartmann’s Kiev gate was never erected.