Mussorgsky

Mussorgsky (also spelled Musorgsky or Moussorgsky), Modest Petrovich

ACHIEVEMENT(S): Major Russian composer

NICKNAME/ALIAS: None

DATE AND PLACE OF BIRTH: March 21, 1839, Karevo, Pskov district, Russia

DATE AND PLACE OF DEATH/AGE AT DEATH: March 16, 1881, St. Petersburg,

Russia. Aged 41

DISCIPLINE: Composer

FIELD: Music

LANGUAGE: Russian

PARENTS: Landowner & wife, unnamed

SIBLINGS: Elder brother Filaret

SPOUSE: None

CHILDREN: None

EDUCATION: Piano lessons with Anton Herke; prep school and tutor, St

Petersburg; Cadet School, St Petersburg

MAJOR WORKS: Symphonic poem: "Ivanova noch na Lysoy gore (Night on a Bare Mountain)"; Opera: "Boris Godunov.”

LIFE AND TIMES:

In 1856 Mussorgsky left the Cadet School and entered the Preobrazhensky Regiment of Guards, one of Russia's most aristocratic regiments, as a lieutenant.

While in the Guards, Mussorgsky met several music-loving officers including Borodin*. Through them, he met composer Mily Balakirev who he persuaded to give him lessons in musical form, based mainly on Beethoven's symphonies, but partly on compositions by Schubert, Schumann, and the Russian composer Glinka*, who proved a powerful influence on Mussorgsky.

In 1857 Mussorgsky started to write and by early 1858 had completed two piano sonatas and the introduction to an opera (never finished). That summer, after mental health prpblems (Mussorgsky was plagued with them throughout his life), he resigned his commission. Work with Balakirev was resumed later in the year and in November he composed two scherzos for piano.

In 1860, in St. Petersburg, he heard the first public performance of his work, his "Scherzo in B flat” at the newly founded Russian Musical Society.

Mussorgsky's father died in 1853, and by 1860 the inheritance had almost dried up. With the freeing of the serfs in 1861, it effectively vanished. Mussorgsky spent the best part of the next two years assisting his brother in the management of the family estate in Karevo. Meanwhile, the "D major Symphony," which he had started in 1860, came to nothing, and Balakirev began to lose faith in the composer. Undaunted, he kept writing and concentrated on the music and libretto of an opera based on Flaubert's* "Salammbo", which eventually became "Boris Godunov".

In 1865, Mussorgsky's mother died, occasioning a severe attack of dipsomania, followed by delirium tremens. After his recovery, he wrote the three mature songs: "Darling Savishna," "Hopak," and "The Seminarist".

Mussorgsky spent the summer of 1867 at his brother's house at Minkino, where he occupied himself with orchestral compositions, including the symphonic poem "Ivanova noch na Lysoy gore” (Night on a Bare Mountain), and piano transcriptions of movements from Beethoven's quartets.

Back in St. Petersburg in1868 he embarked on his most daring work, a setting of the first act of Gogol's* "Zhenitba (The Marriage)." During this period, Mussorgsky reached the height of his powers with the first song of his incomparable cycle "Detskaya (The Nursery)". He also experimented mixing realism with romantic

lyricism, working again on the Godunov opera, basing his libretto partly on

Aleksandr Pushkin’s play.

In 1869, he re-entered the civil service as assistant head clerk in the Ministry of State Property. In early 1871, he learned the Godunov score had been rejected by the Mariinsky Theatre because the plot lacked love interest, and so revised the opera from start to finish, adding the roles of Marina and Rangoni, as well as several new episodes.

While working on the Godunov revision, Mussorgsky shared an apartment with

another composer of the Balakirev group, Rimsky-Korsakov*,who was working on his opera "The Maid of Pskov".

The first production of "Boris Godunov" took place in 1874, at the Mariinsky Theatre, in St. Petersburg. It was a success and was given eight more performances before the end of the season. Even so, Mussorgsky gradually fell into a melancholy. Left very much alone, he began to drink heavily. The composition of the opera "Khovanshchina" may have offered some distraction but it was never finished.

Mussorgsky found a companion in the person of a distant relative, Arseny

Golenishchev Kutuzov, who inspired Mussorgsky's two cycles of melancholy melodies, "Bez solntsa (Sunless)" and "Pesni i plyaski smerti (Songs and Dances of Death)". The death in 1873 of a friend, painter Victor Hartmann, inspired him to write the piano suite

"Kartinki s vystavki (Pictures from an Exhibition)", orchestrated in 1922 by French composer Ravel*.

The last few years of Mussorgsky's life were spent in alcoholism and

solitude and in one civil service job after another. On February 15, 1881, he made his last public appearance at a concert conducted by Rimsky-Korsakov. During the next week he suffered a series of alcoholic fits and was removed by his friends to the Nikolayevsky Military Hospital where he died.

ASSESSMENT: Few composers rank with Mussorgsky in originality and boldness.

EXTRA CONNECTIONS: Anna Mahler* worked on a production of his music in England.

He admired Tchaikovsky*

His work was sung by Chaliapin*

ONELINER: Modest Mussorgsky, major Russian composer

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

EB

Abraham, Gerald, "Modest Musorgsky" in The New Grove Russian Masters 1, London: Macmillan, 1986