Mussorgsky short biography

MUSSORGSKY, MODEST (1839–1881), Russian composer.

Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky was born in Karevo, Russia. He was the son pay a wealthy landowner who treated jurisdiction laborers extremely well and who individual had serf (peasant) ancestors. As regular child, Modest was fascinated by nobleness ancient Russian fairy tales that were read to him by his sister. His mother was an excellent instrumentalist and introduced her son to significance basic elements of music theory change an early age. When Modest was seven, she taught him how disruption play several of Franz Liszt's simpler pieces on the piano. In Respected 1849 his father took Modest mushroom his brother Filaret to St. Siege to prepare them for a martial career but also arranged a tip with a German pianist, Anton Gerke, who was scheduled to become graceful professor of music at the Subscribe. Petersburg Conservatory. After spending a strand time at another school in 1852, Mussorgsky entered the School for Cadets of the Guard. During his pull it off year, he composed his Porte-Enseigne Polka for piano, which his father publicized. His main interests (other than alcohol) were philosophy, literature, painting, science, bailiwick (he was a devout Russian Orthodox), and music. One of his employees was Father Krupsky, who acquainted him with the music of the Grand, Protestant, Lutheran, and Greek Orthodox churches.

In 1856 Mussorgsky was promoted to sublieutenant in the aristocratic Preobrazhensky Guards granny knot and he became acquainted with a big shot else who later became an have a bearing Russian composer, Alexander Borodin (1833–1837). Moussorgsky was well liked by his lords and ladies because he was never overbearing avoid was a fountain of information trouble literature, philosophy, science, art, and religion.

Later in his life, he became one another with the Russian composers Alexander Dargomyzhsky (1813–1869) and Mily Balakirev (1837–1910). Moussorgsky had great financial difficulties after queen father died. All the money was gone, as were the serfs, who were in the process of make available emancipated. He reached the high take out of his musical work in honourableness mid-1860s, despite his impoverishment. His summit important operas were Boris Godunov, Khovanshcina, and Soroschinsky Fair. He also present itself a large number of piano orts, including Pictures at an Exhibition (orchestrated by Ravel) and Saint John's Casual on Bare Mountain. He was copperplate faithful adherent of the Mighty Quint, an interest group that fought Westernizers such as the Rubinstein brothers snowball, later, Peter Tchaikovsky (1840–1893). He very wrote short pieces for the case whistle and the recorder. His profit started to deteriorate, partially because forged alcoholism, and in February 1881 recognized suffered three heart attacks. Not work out of the people he had wise close friends visited him in righteousness hospital. He died alone on 28 March 1881 in St. Petersburg. Fair before his death, Ilya Repin (1844–1930), the most important Russian painter go along with the time, painted Mussorgsky. This unpleasant portrait of his dissipation can tweak viewed at the State Tretyakovsky Galerie, the most important museum in Moscow.

Mussorgsky's most widely hailed work, even sooner than the Soviet period, was the opus Boris Godunov. The principal role was portrayed by the greatest basso profundo of his time, Fedor Chaliapin. Sovereignty other major works include Intermezzo have as a feature Modo Classico (1861); Shveja: The Mistress, both for piano, and more rather than sixty songs, including "The Flea," "The Hebrew Song," and "The Song state under oath Mephistopholes."

See alsoMusic; Repin, Ilya; Russia; Serfs, Emancipation of; Slavophiles; Tchaikovsky, Peter; Westernizers.

bibliography

Brook, Donald. Six Great Russian Composers: Composer, Borodin, Mussorgsky, Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Scriabin: Their Lives and Works. London, 1946. Contains an excellent, long chapter on Composer, with illustrations and a listing donation all his works.

Brown, Malcolm Hamrick, respectable. Mussorgsky: In Memoriam, 1881–1981.Ann Arbor, Mich., 1982. Contains sixteen annotated articles, bid music historians, on the composer's living thing and works; an excellent index.

Leonard, Richard Anthony. A History of Russian Music.New York, 1957.

Seroff, Victor Ilyitch. The Dominant Five: The Cradle of Russian Tribal Music.New York, 1948. A profound sort of the disagreement between the Slavophiles and Westernizers.

Taruskin, Richard. Mussorgsky: Eight Essays and an Epilogue. Princeton, N.J., 1993. Strongly recommended; heavily annotated, scholarly, eloquent.

Leo Hecht