Winstons. The - Pictures At An Exhibition (2017)

The second album from this Italian band.

The band is a trio with a lineup of drums, bass, organ, piano, keyboards and vocals on this album.
The band is joined by Roberto Izzo (violin) and Sebastiano De Gennaro (percussion and vibes) on this album.

This is indeed a cooperation between The Winstons and these two guys.

After the psych prog debut album, the world of The Winstons is taking a radical change of direction on this album. This by their own choice.

My question is: Why ??

Well, they are artists and creative artists. This is what artists sometimes do and more artists should do this.

Pictures At An Exhibition was composed by Modest Mussorgsky around 1875 and published after his death. Maurice Ravel did the most popular version of this piano piece in 1922.... that is...before Emerson, Lake & Palmer released their version on LP back in 1971. Their version is one of the more famous pieces of work in the progressive rock history and is a must have album.

The Winstons & Co version is a less bombastic and more simplified version of the same piece. It is also more classical music true version of this piece.

There is no denying that Pictures At An Exhibition is a very impressive piece of music, no matter which version. OK, The Winstons has released the least impressive version as it is probably more classical music orientated than the composer intented.

Nevertheless, this is a good album and one to check out. It is an oddity of an album, though....

3 points