Modest Mussorgsky (March 21, 1839 - March 28, 1881)
Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky was one of the better known members of The Five, and as with the rest, he was a nationalist Russian Romantic composer. This means that he sought to create a genre of Russian music that was unique to them, and often in defiance with Western traditions. His works include many piano pieces, operas, and even an orchestral tone poem. Until recently his works were known by the revised copies, but now people are starting to recognize his original manuscripts and prefer those instead.
Mussorgsky was born in the Pskov region in Imperial Russia, about 250 miles south of St. Petersburg. He came from a wealthy and noble land-owning family. At age six he began taking piano lessons with his mother, who was a trained pianist. His skill on the piano grew quite fast and he was already performing works for family and friends by age nine. The next year him and his brother were sent to St. Petersburg to study at the renowned Peterschule. While there Mussorgsky studied piano with Anton Gerke and in 1852 published his first piano piece at his father's expense, Porte-enseigne Polka.
The following year Mussorgsky's parents insisted that he continue the family tradition of serving in the military. At age 13 Mussorgsky entered the Cadet School of the Guard, which was known to be a brutally tough place. Here is where Mussorgsky's alcohol problems began as the general "was proud when a cadet returned from leave drunk with champagne." Luckily, the general's daughter studied piano and Mussorgsky was albe to take lessons with her, and among other cadets his skills were appreciated as he would play dances for them, interspersed with his own improvisations.
Over the next few years Mussorgsky would come in contact with many important composers that would shape the rest of his life. In 1856, when he was 17, he met the 22 year old Borodin while both served at military hospital in St. Petersburg and were on good terms. That winter he met a much more famous composer, Alexander Dargomyzhsky, who was said to be the next great Russian composer after Glinka.
Dargomyzhsky was very impressed by Mussorgsky's talent on the piano, and began focusing his attention on him. He introduced Mussorgsky to many people, including members that would eventually make up the The Five, such as Balakirev and Cui. Balakirev was very important to the Mussorgsky's development and took time playing through orchestral scores on the piano with him to learn about the form of composition. Up until this point Mussorgsky had only been associated with piano music, so Balakirev took it upon himself to fill these spaces of Mussorgsky's knowledge.
Within a few months of studying music with Balakirev, Mussorgsky decided to devote himself to music. This started out with a lot of works being started but then being abandoned. One piece he did finish in this time was Intermezzo in modo classico, which is the only major piece he finished composing between December 1860 and August 1863. One of the major problems that Mussorgsky faced at this was the emancipation of the serfs in 1861, which ended with his family losing half their land.
By this time Mussorgsky had gotten tired of Balakirev's strict teaching and had left The Five. In 1863 he began an opera, Salammbô, and spent three years on it before losing interest and abandoning it. As this point in life he had to support himself by being a low grade civil servant, and he had lost his mother at this same time. Although this was a troubling time he managed to finish his first two "realistic" songs in 1866, Hopak and Darling Savishna. The following year was also important as it was when he completed the first orchestral version of the tone poem, Night on Bare Mountain; although because Balakirev criticized it and refused to conduct, it was never performed in Mussorgsky's lifetime.
In 1868 Mussorgsky began work on another opera, Nikolai Gogol's Zhenitba. He quickly orchestrated the first 11 scenes but then abandoned it after finishing Act One. A few months after abandoning this he was encourage to write another opera about the story of Boris Godunov. He completed the score in the following year but was rejected for not having a "prima donna" role. He then went and revised the piece with help from Rimsky-Korsakov, and it was accepted around the time of May 1872 and began being staged in 1873. After Boris Godunov had reached the stage Mussorgsky was requested to write a couple more operas. Khovanshchina was to be his own work, and Mlada was supposed to be an opera written by all The Five together but utterly failed.
After this point Mussorgsky started going to decline as his bonds with other composers were disintegrating and his alcoholism was taking over further. Thankfully, he was still able to write a few quality works: Sunless, Song and Dances of Death, Prelude to Khovanshchina, the piano suite Pictures at an Exhibition, and began work on another opera -- The Fair at Sorochinsk. In the years to follow he would receive funds to complete these two operas but neither one was completed (the piano score for Khovanshchina was only two numbers away from being finished). Mussorgsky past away a week after his 42nd birthday due to poor health.
Boris Godunov is considered to be Mussorgsky's finest work. When everything is said and done this was his only opera that was actually completed. It is based on early Russia history, like many operas from Russia at this time, and more specifically set in the early 1600's when Godunov was resigning as the tsar. Many composers have written revisions to this work, most notably Rimsky-Korsakov and Shostakovich. They thought his ideas didn't have fluid transitions between melodies, but many critics --Shostakovich's student-- think that when you change that it no longer has the characteristics that make it originally Mussorgsky. Enjoy below Boris Christoff performing the "Boris's Death Scene" from Boris Godunov.
The Five -
Mussorgsky
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