Liszt, Franz/Moussorgsky, Modeste: Pictures At An Exhibition (Naxos Audio CD)

Peng Peng (solo piano, Liszt)
Nashville Symphony Orchestra and Chorus
Leonard Slatkin

An increasing number of recordings (Stokowski’s characteristically daring transcription is available on Naxos 8.557645) now feature orchestrations of Mussorgsky’s Pictures other than Ravel’s popular warhorse (Naxos 8.555924). Leonard Slatkin’s eclectic selection, some more outlandish than others, invites us to bask in the high spirits and ingenuity of no fewer than fifteen different composers.

The Chinese pianist Peng Peng, who was fourteen at the time of this recording, has won many competitions, including first prize in the 2002 China National Youth Piano Competition.

“The NSO sounded like a great virtuoso orchestra, and Leonard Slatkin's directorship was both knowing and deeply involved….. Peng Peng played Franz Liszt's rhetorical and meretricious Piano Concerto No. 1 in E-flat with requisite flash and agreeable derring-do.”
Washington Post