I hope this finds you well.
Today, let's talk about the fourth movement of the Pictures at an Exhibition: Bydlo. Bydlo is a Polish word for cattle, and this movement has a complete opposite mood and texture from the previous movement, Tuileries.
Hartmann's work is lost, so I made my own rendition of Bydlo:
In this movement, Ravel uses low strings, bassoons, and contrabassoon for an accompaniment:
Let's take a look at the score.
1. con sord.= con sordino (with mute)- This creates a muddy sound in the violoncello (cello) and contrabass (bass).
2. tenuto= the line under each note indicates these notes to be connected.
3. It's not showing in this image, but the tempo/style indication (by Mussorgsky) is "Sempre moderato, pesante", which roughly means "maintain moderate tempo (not too fast, not too slow), and heavy/weighed"
Then a tuba enters with a beautiful yet labored solo. Let's take a listen:
This music and the orchestration certainly do provide an imagery of a cattle steadily pulling a heavy cart.
Ok. let's take a moment to talk about the tuba. Ravel personally brought over a "French tuba" for the premiere. Here is a video of musicians of the Utah Symphony speaking about the French tuba.
In some US orchestras, euphonium is used instead of French tuba, and it is either played by a trombone or a tuba player. At CSO, our Principal Tuba Neil Konouchi was planning to use his F-Tuba (smaller than his regular tuba) to play this solo.
Enjoy!
Stay well, and I'll check in with you in a few days.
Best,
Kayoko
