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28 RACHMANINOFF // MUSSORGSKY Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition is regarded as being extremely difficult. What attracted you to this work? Pictures at an Exhibition is a very original work. The idea of a piece organised like a visit to an exhibition, as a succession of vignettes interspersed with promenades, is absolutely unique in the repertory. But it’s to Ravel that this work owes its great success. In fact it’s Ravel’s orchestration that is played most often, much more than the original piano version. You have to admit that he did an amazing job: it’s as if he had transformed the piece from black and white into colour. I still carry his version inside me. Ravel places light at my fingertips. But he isn’t the only one to have arranged Pictures at an Exhibition . That’s what is astonishing in the history of this work: whether it’s conductors, composers or musicians, everyone seems to have his or her own interpretation, his or her own version. For my part, I would never allow myself to change a single note or even a mere nuance of the original version! But I am still fascinated by the need to rearrange it that this work seems to inspire in people. Mussorgsky composed it after experiencing an artistic epiphany while walking around an exhibition. Perhaps it’s the universality of this emotion that makes everyone want to revise its scoring!