Mikhail Rudy in "Pictures at an Exhibition," at the Guggenheim Some artistic engagements seem inevitable; others, highly unlikely. A brief, intriguing recital presented on Thursday evening by Mikhail Rudy, a Russian pianist born in Uzbekistan and based in France since the 1970s, managed to be both at once. Ian Douglas for The New York Times Mikhail Rudy playing from Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" at the Guggenheim Museum. That a program inspired by a creation of the Russian artist Vasily Kandinsky would turn up at the Guggenheim Museum, which holds one of the world's richest Kandinsky collections: that part was a no-brainer. But this particular event was based on the remaining evidence of a staged version of Mussorgsky's piano suite "Pictures at an Exhibition." That composition was inspired by an 1874 gallery show of paintings by Viktor Hartmann, whose work Mussorgsky admired and collected, and who died suddenly in 1873. Hartmann's art was ornate, figurative and deeply Russian: characteristics seemingly at odds with Kandinsky's vibrant geometric abstractions and cosmopolitan air. Interviewed onstage after his performance, Mr. Rudy explained the circumstances of this seemingly unlikely intersection. Kandinsky, like many artists of his day, was intrigued by the possibilities of cross-pollination among disciplines, including Wagner's megalomaniacal Gesamtkunstwerk ("total artwork") and Scriabin's mystical notions of synesthesia. Kandinsky's concept for "Pictures at an Exhibition," successfully staged in Dessau, Germany, in 1928, involved intricate combinations of color, light, costuming and motion. All that remains of that presentation are Kandinsky's conceptual watercolors and a score used by the pianist Felix Klee (the son of the painter Paul Klee), annotated by Kandinsky with directions and durations to link the music with the staging. Using those elements, Mr. Rudy made an animated video, which evokes Kandinsky's ideas more often than it renders them literally. At times Mr. Rudy borrowed ideas Kandinsky fashioned for one movement to flesh out ideas in another, as when two figures from a concept painting for "The Great Gate at Kiev" became whimsical protagonists in Mr. Rudy's depiction of "Two Polish Jews: Rich and Poor." During the concert the video was projected on a screen at center stage, while Mr. Rudy, equipped with a tiny video monitor, performed off to one side. His playing was not always pristine; "The Hut on Fowl's Legs" was particularly ramshackle in its ferocity, "The Great Gate of Kiev" likewise in its grandeur. Still, Mr. Rudy conveyed ample color, character and spirit, especially in the lively "Tuileries" and "Ballet of the Chicks in Their Shells," which both were played in the encore.