Mussorgsky “Bydlo“ (’Pictures at an Exhibition’) - Peter Breiner’s orchestration

There are over 30 symphony orchestra arrangements of ’Pictures at an Exhibition,’ including Ravel’s, but one of the most recent is also one of the most over-the-top! It makes the versions by Sir Henry Wood and Leopold Stokowski sound positively ascetic. It’s by the Slovak conductor/composer Peter Breiner and here’s a ’sampler’ of his scoring: the movement entitled “Bydlo“ depicting a Polish ox-wagon. Breiner himself conducts the New Zealand Symphony on this splendidly recorded CD for Naxos, to whom all due