PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION

The famous live album - a stroke of genius or a sacrileg? Well, best of both worlds, I'd hope. Let the offended be offended - if ELP hadn't took on the works of Bartok, Mussorgsky, Copland, Ginastera, Janacek etc., I'd never had focused my attention on the originals. Therefore I am really thankful they did what they did. And they surely brought more kids to classical music then all of the snobs and self proclaimed connaisseurs yelling "trivialization".

The album: I think they've overdone Promenade a bit and some other parts of Mussorgsky's original work might have sounded interesting in ELP's interpretation (e.g. Bydlo). Some songs are indespensible 5 star tracks. The rest are 3-4 stars. Sums up to a total of 4 stars.

Favourite Tracks: THE OLD CASTLE/BLUES VARIATIONS, THE HUT OF BABA YAGA Suite and THE GREAT GATE OF KIEV.