Modest Mussorgsky was a man of great friendships and great loyalties. When his friend the Russian painter Victor Hartman died in 1873 of a heart ailment at the age of thirty-nine, Mussorgsky’s grief knew no limits.

Hartman’s drawings and pastels, all in a style très russe, were exhibited in a St. Petersburg gallery shortly after his death, and Mussorgsky decided to pay a musical tribute to his friend by writing a suite for piano, setting to music selected paintings from Hartman’s exhibition. This suite, published under the tide Pictures at an Exhibition, became very popular, and acquired an even greater popularity through Maurice Ravel’s dazzling orchestration.