Pictures at an Exhibition [Deluxe Edition] [PA]

Performer: Emerson, Lake & Palmer
Distributor: Phantom Import Distributi

Notes: Emerson, Lake & Palmer perform Mussorgsky's "Pictures At An Exhibition". Emerson, Lake & Palmer: Keith Emerson (keyboards); Greg Lake (vocals, guitar, bass); Carl Palmer (drums, percussion). Much was made of early prog-rock's fusion of rock with classical music, but ELP was one of the only bands to take that task seriously, and never more so than on PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION. The well-known Mussorgsky piece is a staple of the classical music diet, and a prime example of "program music," where related sections of a piece combine to tell a story. True to the spirit of the times, ELP attacked "Pictures" with both classically trained respect and rocker irreverence. The album, recorded live in 1971, finds the band turning Mussorgsky's work inside out, not just restructuring it but reinventing it for their rock audience. While sections like "Promenade" and The Hut of Baba Yaga" are essentially electrified, rocked-up versions of the original melodies, the band injects plenty of their own original (but not unrelated) motifs into the piece, including Greg Lake's moody ballad "The Sage" and the self-explanatory "Blues Variation." ELP is to be commended as much for its brash ambition as for its achievement in attempting a Moog-ified revamping of such a well established piece as PICTURES. Question: How many times can Emerson, Lake & Palmer's Pictures at an Exhibition get re-released before fans of the band feel they're being taken advantage of? The answer seems to be -- thus far -- an infinite number, and with some good reason, at least in the case of the "Deluxe Edition" before us. This is at least the eighth version to pass through, assuming one went back to the original Atlantic and Island Records LPs, and counts the Japanese CD re-releases. And although you may hesitate before buying this double-disc set, it turns out that this "Deluxe Edition," expensive as it is, is not only worthwhile but is also the ultimate resource for the group's interpretation of the Mussorgsky/Ravel work (at least, until someone does a triple-disc version with the film of the Lyceum performance on a DVD platter). The December 1970 Lyceum performance from that film is presented here in its entirety (along with the trio's rendition of "Rondo," which had previously appeared on the From the Beginning box set), with its sound cleaned up of all of the electronic anomalies that prohibited its earlier release. The familiar 1971 Newcastle performance comprises disc one, filled out with a bonus selection of a less well-conceived (and recorded) live medley of the piece that brings the running time of the CD up to over 73 minutes. This disc by itself is the best sounding rendition of the original album that you've ever heard, the richness of tone finally matching the crispness of the sound so that even on the softest passages of Greg Lake's acoustic interlude "The Sage," one appreciates the intonation of the playing and singing, even as listeners can also practically hear the action on Carl Palmer's drum kit as well as, of course, Keith Emerson's keyboards. It's like hearing this performance anew. As to the second disc, which contains the repaired Lyceum recording, it's a welcome addition, but it also presents an odd conundrum -- any professionally recorded live EP from the trio's first couple of years is, of course, always welcome, but the Lyceum performance, though a choice treat, became less essential than it might otherwise have been. It was the sonic faults in the recording of that concert that resulted in the Newcastle performance, for which the group left nothing to chance -- working with their preferred engineer, Eddie Offord, and going over every detail of the performance ahead of time with all hands. And the latter was so perfectly captured, and is so well reproduced here, that the Lyceum show, less well recorded and not as developed as the later rendition, while wonderful to hear -- and which would have been considered a classic if they had been able to release it at the time, in early 1971 -- is inherently just a bit of an anti-climax, taken in the broader context of this whole release and the trio's overall history. Not that we would ever give away that platter, but the selling point here for any purchaser with ears will be the whole set, not just the Lyceum show. ~ Bruce Eder

Emerson, Lake & Palmer were one of the most popular of the initial wave of 1970s British prog-rock bands. They sported post-British Invasion rock's first alternative to the guitar hero in Keith Emerson, whose outlandish keyboard antics rivaled the onstage pyrotechnics of Hendrix and Townshend. The group mixed heavy rock riffs with classical influences, relying equally on instrumental virtuosity and an epic sense of showmanship that won them countless fans in their '70s heyday.

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