Elgar Howarth’s orchestration of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition was the consequence of Argo Records’ request for something spectacular for the eighth of a series of sixteen LPs; Howarth’s choice was spontaneous, offering music that would appeal to both the general concertgoer and the brass enthusiast. Pictures was recorded prima vista at Kingsway Hall, London 24–26 October 1977, and pre-dated the first public performance (with three other London premieres) in a PJBE own-promotion concert at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on 26 September 1978. Music critic Edward Greenfield had doubts about whether the playing in the recording studio could be replicated in a live performance, but was unequivocal in his praise after the premiere. Two prominent performances followed in the summer of 1979, at Ripon Cathedral on 15 August and a BBC Prom on 20 August. At the Prom, Howarth conducted the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra in Debussy’s La Mer and Birtwistle’s The Triumph of Time (1971–2), and, after the interval, the PJBE’s Pictures. By this point in its development, the national profile of the PJBE could hardly have been higher; in 1975 it was chosen over the military to play at the enthronement of Donald Coggan, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and in 1982 for televised coverage of the first visit to Britain of a reigning pope, John Paul II. It was also an ensemble of choice of Pink Floyd and Paul McCartney.

In Jones’s opinion, the Prom at the Royal Albert Hall was the high point of his ensemble’s existence. In the mid 1970s, innovations in British brass playing were rapid and wide-ranging, and Pictures was one of several key events that altered the perception of brass playing amongst the wider concert-going and record-buying public. New works written for amateur brass bands were radical and innovative; the PJBE’s Prom was predated by the Grimethorpe Colliery Band’s performance of Harrison Birtwistle’s Grimethorpe Aria in 1974 and Hans Werner Henze’s Ragtimes and Habaneras in 1975. The Locke Brass Consort’s recording of the complete symphonic brass music of Richard Strauss, issued by Chandos Records in 1979, was another prestigious production.

The instrumentation of Pictures was guided by Schuller’s historic Symphony (1950), for which Pictures was envisaged as a companion piece. The role of a solo flugelhorn (played by Jones) was central, and a solo part for E♭ trumpet essential to the convergence of the high brass; otherwise, the instrumentation matched Schuller’s formation.