Mussorgsky works list of titles. Mussorgsky short biography and interesting facts

The brothers entered the German School of Saints Peter and Paul. In the year Modest entered the School of Guards ensigns, which he graduated in the year. Then M.P. Mussorgsky briefly served in the Life Guards Preobrazhensky Regiment and in the Main Engineering Directorate. After his retirement, he served in the Ministry of State Property and in the Department of State Control.

By the time of joining the music circle M.A. Balakireva M.P. Mussorgsky was a well-educated and erudite Russian officer, fluent in French and German, understood Latin and Greek, and aspired to become (as he himself put it) a "musician." Balakirev forced M.P. Mussorgsky to pay serious attention to musical studies. Under his leadership, M.P. Mussorgsky read orchestral scores, analyzed harmony, counterpoint and form in the works of recognized Russian and European composers, and developed composing skills in himself.

Playing the piano M.P. Mussorgsky studied with Anton Gercke and became a good pianist. By nature, possessing a beautiful chamber baritone, he willingly sang at evenings in private music collections.

Modest Mussorgsky - officer of the Preobrazhensky Regiment.

Creation

Painful for M.P. Mussorgsky was misunderstood by his work in the official academic environment, as, for example, at the Mariinsky Theater, then led by foreigners and compatriots who sympathized with Western opera fashion. But a hundred times more painful was the rejection of his innovation on the part of people whom he considered close friends (Balakirev, Cui, Rimsky-Korsakov, etc.):

“At the first screening of the 2nd act of the Sorochinskaya Fair, I was convinced of a fundamental misunderstanding of the music of the collapsed “bunch” of Little Russian comedy: such a cold blew from their views and demands that “the heart was frozen,” as Archpriest Avvakum says. Nevertheless, I stopped ", I thought about it and checked myself more than once. It cannot be that I was wrong in my aspirations, it cannot be. But it's a shame that with the music of the collapsed "heap" one has to interpret through the "barrier" behind which they remained. Letter to A. A. Golenishchev-Kutuzov November 10.

These experiences of the composer due to the lack of recognition and "misunderstanding" became the cause of "nervous fever", which intensified in the 2nd half of the 1990s, and as a result - his addiction to alcohol.

M.P. Mussorgsky was not in the habit of making preliminary sketches, sketches, and drafts. He thought about everything for a long time, composed and recorded completely finished music. This feature of his creative method, multiplied by nervous illness and alcoholism, was the reason for the slowdown in the process of creating music in the last years of his life. Having resigned from the “forest department”, he lost a permanent (albeit small) source of income and was content with odd jobs and insignificant financial support from friends.

The last bright event in the life of M.P. Mussorgsky was arranged by his friend, the singer Daria Mikhailovna Leonova, a trip in July-September of the year to the south of Russia. During the tour, Leonova M.P. Mussorgsky acted as her accompanist, and performed his own innovative compositions. Concerts of Russian musicians, which were given in Poltava, Elizavetgrad, Nikolaev, Kherson, Odessa, Sevastopol, Rostov-on-Don and other cities, were held with constant success, which assured the composer (albeit for a short time) that his path "to new shores" chosen correctly.

Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky died in a military hospital, where he was placed after an attack of delirium tremens. In the same place, a few days before his death, Ilya Repin painted the (only lifetime) portrait of the composer.

M.P. Mussorgsky died on March 28 in St. Petersburg and was buried at the Tikhvin cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. In - years, in connection with the reconstruction and redevelopment of the so-called "Masters of Arts Necropolis" (architects E. N. Sandler and E. K. Reimers), the area in front of the Lavra was significantly expanded and, accordingly, the line of the Tikhvin cemetery was moved. At the same time, the Soviet authorities moved only tombstones to a new place, while the graves were covered with asphalt, including the grave of M.P. Mussorgsky. At the burial site of Modest Petrovich, there is now a bus stop (the first to point out this fact was MP Mussorgsky's great-niece, as Yevgeny Evgenievich Nesterenko told on TV; see Mussorgsky's Mystery and the Moment of Truth).

National features of M. Mussorgsky's creativity

In the musical work of M.P. Mussorgsky found an original and vivid expression of Russian national traits. This defining feature of his style manifested itself in many ways: in the ability to handle folk songs, in the melodic, harmonic and rhythmic features of music, and finally, in the choice of subjects, mainly from Russian life. M.P. Mussorgsky is a hater of routine; for him, there were no authorities in music. He paid little attention to the rules of musical "grammar", seeing in them not the provisions of science, but only a collection of composing techniques of previous eras. Hence the constant desire of M.P. Mussorgsky-composer to novelty in everything.

The most ambitious creative achievements of M.P. Mussorgsky are concentrated in the field of opera, whose own variety he called (including so that his creations in this genre would not evoke association with the concerto-romantic opera aesthetics that dominated Russia) “musical drama”. Boris Godunov, based on the drama of the same name by Pushkin (and also under the great influence of Karamzin's interpretation of this plot), is one of the best works of world musical theater. The musical language and dramaturgy of "Boris" meant a complete break with the routine of the then opera house, the action of the "musical drama" was now carried out by specifically musical means.

Even more skeptical attitude of colleagues and contemporaries touched the next opera by M.P. Mussorgsky (its genre is designated by the author himself as "folk musical drama") "Khovanshchina" - on the theme of historical events in Russia at the end of the 17th century.

Compared to Boris Godunov, Khovanshchina is not just a drama of one historical person (through which the theme of power, crime, conscience and retribution is revealed), but already a kind of “impersonal” historiosophical drama in which, in the absence of a pronounced “central "character (characteristic of the standard operatic dramaturgy of that time), whole layers of folk life are revealed and the theme of the spiritual tragedy of the whole people, which takes place when their traditional historical and way of life is broken, is raised.

M.P. Mussorgsky left only a few works for orchestra, of which the symphonic painting "Night on Bald Mountain" stands out. This is a colorful picture of the "coven of the spirits of darkness" and "the magnificence of Chernobog." Noteworthy is "Intermezzo" (composed for piano in the year), built on a theme reminiscent of music of the 18th century.

An outstanding work by M.P. Mussorgsky - a cycle of piano pieces "Pictures at an Exhibition", written in the year as musical illustrations-episodes for watercolors by V.A. Hartmann. Contrasting pieces-impressions are permeated with a Russian theme-refrain, reflecting the change of moods during the transition from one picture to another. The Russian theme opens the composition and it also ends it (“The Bogatyr Gates”), now transforming into the anthem of Russia and its Orthodox faith.

reception

In the 19th century, the works of M.P. Mussorgsky were published by the firm V. Bessel and Co. in St. Petersburg; much was also published in Leipzig by the firm of Mitrofan Petrovich Belyaev. In the 20th century, editions of M.P. Mussorgsky in original versions, based on a thorough study of primary sources. The pioneer of such activity was the Russian musicologist P. A. Lamm, who published the claviers of Boris Godunov, Khovanshchina, as well as the composer’s vocal and piano works - all in the author’s edition.

Both musical dramas by M.P. Mussorgsky won worldwide recognition after the death of the composer, and to this day they are among the most frequently performed works of Russian music all over the world. Their international success was greatly facilitated by the admiring attitude of such composers as Debussy, Ravel, Stravinsky, as well as the entrepreneurial activity of Sergei Diaghilev, who staged them for the first time abroad at the beginning of the 20th century in his Russian Seasons in Paris.

From orchestral works by M.P. Mussorgsky's symphonic painting "Night on Bald Mountain" became world famous. Now practiced is the performance of this work in the edition of N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov, less often in the author's edition.

The vivid coloring, sometimes even the imagery, of the "Pictures at an Exhibition" piano cycle inspired several composers to create orchestral versions; the most famous and most widely represented orchestration of "Pictures" on the concert stage belongs to M. Ravel.

The works of M.P. Mussorgsky had an enormous influence on all subsequent generations of composers. The specific melody, which was considered by the composer as an expressive extension of human speech, and innovative harmony, anticipated many features of the harmony of the 20th century. Dramaturgy of M.P. Mussorgsky strongly influenced the work of Leos Janacek, Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky, Dmitry Dmitrievich Shostakovich, Alban Berg (the dramaturgy of his opera Wozzeck on the principle of "scene-fragment" is very close to "Boris Godunov"), Olivier Messiaen and many others.

List of compositions

• Opera "Boris Godunov" (, 2nd edition 1874);
• Opera "Khovanshchina" (-, not finished; editions: N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov,; D. D. Shostakovich, 1958);
• Opera "Marriage" ( , not finished; editions: M. M. Ippolitova-Ivanova, ; G. N. Rozhdestvensky, 1985);
• Opera "Sorochinsky Fair" (-, not finished; editors: Ts. A. Cui,; V. Ya. Shebalina,);
• Opera "Salambo" (not finished; edited by Zoltan Peshko, 1979);
• "Pictures at an Exhibition", a cycle of pieces for pianoforte (); orchestrated by various composers, including Maurice Ravel, Sergei Gorchakov (), Lawrence Leonard, Keith Emerson, etc.
• "Songs and Dances of Death", vocal cycle (); orchestrations: E. V. Denisov, N. S. Korndorf, D. D. Shostakovich .;
• "Night on Bald Mountain" (). Full author's title: "Ivan's Night on Bald Mountain" - a symphonic picture;
• "Children's", vocal cycle ();
• "Without the Sun", vocal cycle ();
• Romances and songs, including "Where are you, little star?", "Kalistrat", "Eryomushka's Lullaby", "Orphan", "Seminarist", "Svetik Savishna", Song of Mephistopheles in Auerbach's cellar ("Flea"), "Rayok »;
• Intermezzo (originally for piano, later orchestrated by the author under the title "Intermezzo in modo classico").

Memory

• On November 27, a monument was erected on the composer's grave. Authors - architect I.S. Bogomolov and sculptor I.Ya. Gunzburg - worked on the project and models for free. Funds for the manufacture of the monument were collected by public subscription, in which Repin, Rimsky-Korsakov, Lyadov, Glazunov and many others took part.
• In 1972, in the village of Naumovo (Kuninsky district of the Pskov region) in the estate of the Chirikovs (the mother line of M.P. Mussorgsky), the Museum-Reserve of M.P. Mussorgsky was opened. The Mussorgsky estate in the village of Karevo (located nearby) has not been preserved.

Objects bearing (bearing) the name of M.P. Mussorgsky

• Ural State Conservatory in Yekaterinburg since the year;
• Mikhailovsky Theater in

The main figure of this article will be Modest Mussorgsky. The composer's biography begins on March 16, 1839 in one of the small villages of the Pskov region. From an early age, his parents, who belonged to an old noble family, introduced the boy to music. His mother taught him to play the piano, and at the age of seven he was already performing plays. A few years later, the future genius already mastered entire concerts.

Biography of Mussorgsky in his early years

Few of Modest's ancestors could have imagined that he would become a great musician and composer. All Mussorgsky's relatives were devoted to the state, and the men served in the tsar's army. The exception was first the father - Peter Mussorgsky, who was distinguished by a great passion for music, and then his son, who inherited this gift. The first piano teacher was Modest's mother, Yulia Chirikova.

In 1849, Modest Mussorgsky went to St. Petersburg, and there he began his first professional music lessons with teacher A.A. Gerke. Under his leadership, he performs at chamber concerts, family reunions and other events. And already in 1852 he wrote and published his own polka called "Ensign".

The founding period of the "Mighty Handful"

Since 1856, Mussorgsky's biography has been unfolding in St. Petersburg, where he simultaneously meets the composer. They become very close friends, who are united not only by a common cause, but also by creativity - music. Some time later, he also met A. Dargomyzhsky, M. Balakirev, C. Cui, as well as the Stasov brothers. All these composers are familiar to us thanks to the Mighty Handful group, which they founded.

The main figure in their "galaxy" was Balakirev - he became a teacher and spiritual mentor for every composer. Together with him, Mussorgsky taught new concertos and large-scale works such as Beethoven, Schubert, Strauss. Visiting the Philharmonic, opera performances and other musical events contributed to the fact that for Modest the goal of life was the knowledge of the beautiful and the creation of it.

Mussorgsky's biography during the period of the new work of The Mighty Handful

In the next decade, the composers of The Mighty Handful adopted the rule that they must follow all the musical canons of M. Glinka. During this period, Mussorgsky wrote music for Sophocles' story Oedipus Rex, and then took up the opera Salambo. Unfortunately, it remained unfinished, but many of the works written for it were included in the composer's masterpiece - the opera Boris Godunov.

The period of travel and the heyday of creativity

In the 60s, Mussorgsky's biography unfolds in new lands. He sets off on a journey in which the city of Moscow becomes the main point. It was this place that inspired him to write his opera “Boris Godunov”, since, in his opinion, “women and men” suitable for staging met him there.

In the future, the composer did not forget to give instrumental concerts and vocal performances. Among pianists, he had no equal, and his own works were praised by many connoisseurs of beauty. It was in this world that the composer Mussorgsky spent his young years.

His biography changes dramatically in the 80s. Then his health was broken, his financial situation was shaken. He no longer had so much time for creativity, so he started drinking. He died on his birthday, in 1881, in a military hospital.

Mussorgsky's biography is very interesting, his life was filled not only with creativity: he was familiar with many prominent people of his time.

Mussorgsky came from an old noble family. He was born on March 9 (21), 1839 in the village of Karevo, Pskov province.

He spent the first 10 years of his life at home, receiving home education and learning to play the piano.

Then he was sent to study in St. Petersburg at a German school, from where he was transferred to the School of Guards Ensigns. It was at this school that he became interested in church music.

Since 1852, Mussorgsky took up musical composition, his compositions were performed on the stages of St. Petersburg and Moscow.

In 1856 he was sent to serve in the Preobrazhensky Guards Regiment (during his service he met A. S. Dargomyzhsky). In 1858 he transferred to the service of the Ministry of State Property.

Musical career

In a brief biography of Mussorgsky Modest Petrovich, written for children, it is mentioned that in 1859 Modest Petrovich met Balakirev, who insisted on the need to deepen his musical knowledge.

In 1861, he began work on such operas as Oedipus (based on a work by Sophocles), Salammbault (based on a work by Flaubert), and The Marriage (based on a play by N. Gogol).

All these operas were never completed by the composer.

In 1870, the composer began work on his most important and famous work - the opera Boris Godunov (based on the tragedy of the same name by A. S. Pushkin). In 1871, he presented his creation to the court of music critics, who suggested that the composer work more and introduce some kind of “feminine principle” into the opera. It was staged only in 1874 at the Mariinsky Theatre.

In 1872, work began on two works at once: the dramatic opera "Khovanshchina" and "Sorochenskaya Fair" (according to the story of N. Gogol). Both of these works were never completed by the maestro.

Mussorgsky wrote many short pieces of music based on the plots of poems and plays by N. Nekrasov, N. Ostrovsky, poems by T. Shevchenko. Some of them were created under the influence of Russian artists (for example, V. Vereshchagin).

last years of life

In the last years of his life, Mussorgsky had a hard time with the collapse of the Mighty Handful, misunderstanding and criticism from music officials and colleagues (Cui, Balakirev, Rimsky-Korsakov). Against this background, he developed a severe depression, he became addicted to alcohol. He began to write music more slowly, quit his job, having lost a small but steady income. In the last years of his life, only friends supported him.

The last time he publicly spoke at the evening in memory of F. M. Dostoevsky on February 4, 1881. On February 13, he died in the Nikolaevsky hospital in St. Petersburg from an attack of delirium tremens.

Mussorgsky was buried at the Tikhvin cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. But today only the tombstone has been preserved, because after a large-scale reconstruction of the old necropolis (in the 30s), his grave was lost (rolled into asphalt). Now there is a bus stop at the composer's burial place.

Chronological table

Other biography options

• The only lifetime portrait of the composer by Ilya Repin was painted a few days before the composer's death.
• Mussorgsky was an incredibly educated person: he was fluent in French, German, English, Latin and Greek, and was an excellent engineer.

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Biography

Following that, Mussorgsky wrote several romances and set to work on the music for Sophocles' tragedy Oedipus; the last work was not completed, and only one choir from the music for Oedipus, performed in a concert by K. N. Lyadov in 1861, was published among the composer's posthumous works. Mussorgsky first chose Flaubert's novel Salammbo for opera adaptation, but soon left this work unfinished, as well as an attempt to write music for the plot of Gogol's The Marriage.

Fame Mussorgsky brought the opera Boris Godunov, staged at the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg in the city and immediately recognized as an outstanding work in some musical circles. This was already the second version of the opera, significantly changed dramaturgically after the repertory committee of the theater rejected its first version for being "unscenic". Over the next 10 years, "Boris Godunov" was given 15 times and then removed from the repertoire. Only at the end of November, "Boris Godunov" saw the light again - but already in the edition, redone by N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov, who "corrected" and re-instrumented the entire "Boris Godunov" at his discretion. In this form, the opera was staged on the stage of the Great Hall of the Musical Society (the new building of the Conservatory) with the participation of members of the Society of Musical Meetings. Firm Bessel and Co. in St. Petersburg. by this time had released a new clavier of Boris Godunov, in the preface to which Rimsky-Korsakov explains that the reasons that prompted him to undertake this alteration were the supposedly “bad texture” and “poor orchestration” of the author’s version of Mussorgsky himself. In Moscow, "Boris Godunov" was staged for the first time at the Bolshoi Theater in the city. In our time, interest in the author's editions of "Boris Godunov" is being revived.

Portrait by Repin

In 1875, Mussorgsky began the dramatic opera (“folk musical drama”) “Khovanshchina” (according to the plan of V.V. Stasov), while simultaneously working on a comic opera based on the plot of Gogol’s “Sorochinsky Fair”. Mussorgsky almost managed to finish the music and text of Khovanshchina - but, with the exception of two fragments, the opera was not instrumented; the latter was done by N. Rimsky-Korsakov, who at the same time finished Khovanshchina (again, with his own adaptations) and adapted it for the stage. The firm Bessel & Co. published the score of the opera and the clavier (g.). "Khovanshchina" was performed on the stage of the St. Petersburg Music and Drama Circle in the city, under the direction of S. Yu. Goldstein; on the stage of the Kononovsky Hall - in the city, by a private opera partnership; at Setov, in Kyiv, in the city. In 1960, the Soviet composer Dmitry Dmitrievich Shostakovich made his own version of the opera Khovanshchina, in which Mussorgsky's opera is now being staged all over the world.

For the Sorochinsky Fair, Mussorgsky managed to compose the first two acts, as well as for the third act: The Dream of Parubka (where he used a reworking of his symphonic fantasy Night on Bald Mountain, made for an unrealized collective work - the opera-ballet Mlada), Dumku Parasi and Gopak. The opera is staged in the editorial office of the outstanding musician Vissarion Yakovlevich Shebalin.

Mussorgsky was an unusually impressionable, enthusiastic, soft-hearted and vulnerable person. For all his external compliance and pliability, he was extremely firm in everything that concerned his creative convictions. Addiction to alcohol, which progressed strongly in the last decade of his life, acquired a destructive character for Mussorgsky's health, his life and the intensity of his work. As a result, after a series of failures in the service and the final dismissal from the ministry, Mussorgsky was forced to live on odd jobs and thanks to the support of friends.

Creativity belongs to a group of musical figures who strove - on the one hand - for formalized realism, on the other hand - for a colorful and poetic disclosure of words, texts and moods through music, flexibly following them. Mussorgsky's national thinking, as a composer, comes through both in the ability to handle folk songs, and in the very warehouse of his music, in its melodic, harmonic and rhythmic features, and finally - in the choice of subjects, mainly from Russian life. Mussorgsky is a hater of routine, for him there are no authorities in music; he paid little attention to the rules of musical grammar, seeing in them not the provisions of science, but only a collection of composing techniques of previous eras. Mussorgsky everywhere gave himself up to his ardent fantasy, everywhere he strove for novelty. Humorous music generally succeeded Mussorgsky, and in this genre he is diverse, witty and resourceful; one has only to recall his fairy tale about the "Goat", the story of the "Seminarian" pounding Latin, in love with the priest's daughter, "Picking Mushrooms" (May's text), "Feast".

Mussorgsky rarely dwells on "pure" lyrical themes, and they are not always given to him (his best lyrical romances are "Night", to the words of Pushkin, and "Jewish Melody", to the words of May); on the other hand, Mussorgsky's work is widely manifested in those cases when he turns to Russian peasant life. The following songs of Mussorgsky are noted for their rich coloring: "Kalistrat", "Lullaby of Eremushka" (words by Nekrasov), "Sleep, sleep, peasant son" (from Ostrovsky's "Voevoda"), "Gopak" (from Shevchenko's "Gaidamaks"), "Svetik Savishna "And" Mischievous "(both the latter - to the words of Mussorgsky himself) and many others. others; Mussorgsky very successfully found here a truthful and deeply dramatic musical expression for that heavy, hopeless grief that is hidden under the external humor of the lyrics.

A strong impression is made by the expressive recitation of the songs “Orphan” and “Forgotten” (based on the plot of the famous painting by V.V. Vereshchagin).

In such a seemingly narrow field of music as "romances and songs", Mussorgsky managed to find completely new, original tasks, and at the same time apply new peculiar techniques for their implementation, which was vividly expressed in his vocal paintings from childhood life, under under the general title "Children's" (text by Mussorgsky himself), in 4 romances under the general title "Songs and Dances of Death" ( -; words by Golenishchev-Kutuzov; "Trepak" - a picture of a tipsy peasant freezing in a forest, in a snowstorm; "Lullaby "draws a mother at the bedside of a dying child; the other two: "Serenade" and "Commander"; all are very colorful and dramatic), in "King Saul" (for a male voice with piano accompaniment; text by Mussorgsky himself), in "The Defeat of Sennacherib" ( for choir and orchestra; words by Byron), in Joshua, successfully built on the original. Jewish topics.

Mussorgsky's specialty is vocal music. He is an exemplary reciter, grasping the slightest bends of the word; in his works, he often gives a wide place to the monologue-recitative warehouse of presentation. Akin to Dargomyzhsky in terms of his talent, Mussorgsky shares his views on musical drama inspired by Dargomyzhsky's opera The Stone Guest. However, unlike Dargomyzhsky, in his mature compositions Mussorgsky overcomes the pure "illustrativeness" of the music passively following the text, which is characteristic of this opera.

Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov, written based on the drama of the same name by Pushkin (and also under the great influence of Karamzin's interpretation of this plot), is one of the best works of world musical theater, whose musical language and dramaturgy already belong to a new genre that took shape in the 19th century in various countries - to the genre of musical stage drama, on the one hand, breaking with many routine conventions of the then traditional opera house, on the other hand, striving to reveal the dramatic action primarily by musical means. At the same time, both author's editions of "Boris Godunov" (1869 and 1874), differing significantly from each other in terms of dramaturgy, are essentially two equivalent author's solutions to the same plot. Especially innovative for its time was the first edition (which was not put on stage until the middle of the 20th century), which was very different from the then-dominated routine opera canons. That is why, during the years of Mussorgsky's life, the opinion prevailed that his "Boris Godunov" was distinguished by an "unsuccessful libretto", "many rough edges and blunders."

Prejudices of this kind were in many ways characteristic primarily of Rimsky-Korsakov, who claimed that Mussorgsky was inexperienced in instrumentation, although it was sometimes not devoid of color and a successful variety of orchestral colors. This opinion was typical for Soviet textbooks of musical literature. In reality, Mussorgsky's orchestral writing simply did not fit into the canvas that suited Rimsky-Korsakov in the main. Such a misunderstanding of Mussorgsky's orchestral thinking and style (to which he, indeed, came almost self-taught) was explained by the fact that the latter was strikingly unlike the lushly decorative aesthetics of orchestral presentation, characteristic of the second half of the 19th century - and, especially, of Rimsky-Korsakov himself. Unfortunately, the conviction cultivated by him (and his followers) about the alleged "shortcomings" of Mussorgsky's musical style for a long time - almost a century ahead - began to dominate the academic tradition of Russian music.

Even more skeptical attitude of colleagues and contemporaries touched Mussorgsky's next musical drama - the opera "Khovanshchina" on the theme of historical events in Russia at the end of the 17th century (split and streltsy revolt), written by Mussorgsky on his own script and text. He wrote this work with long breaks, and by the time of his death it remained unfinished (among the currently existing editions of the opera, performed by other composers, the orchestration by Shostakovich and the completion of the last act of the opera, made by Stravinsky, can be considered the closest to the original). Unusual and the idea of ​​this work, and its scale. Compared to Boris Godunov, Khovanshchina is not just a drama of one historical person (through which the philosophical themes of power, crime, conscience and retribution are revealed), but already a kind of “impersonal” historiosophical drama in which, in the absence of a pronounced “ central” character (characteristic of the standard operatic dramaturgy of that time), whole layers of folk life are revealed and the theme of the spiritual tragedy of the whole people, which takes place when their traditional historical and way of life is broken, is raised. To emphasize this genre feature of the opera "Khovanshchina", Mussorgsky gave it the subtitle "folk musical drama".

Both of Mussorgsky's musical dramas won a relatively quick worldwide recognition after the death of the composer, and to this day they are among the most frequently performed works of Russian music all over the world (their international success was greatly facilitated by the admiring attitude of such composers as Debussy, Ravel, Stravinsky - as well as the entrepreneurial activities of Sergei Diaghilev, who staged them for the first time abroad at the beginning of the 20th century in his Russian Seasons in Paris). Nowadays, most of the world's opera houses strive to stage both Mussorgsky's operas in urtext editions that are as close as possible to the author's. At the same time, in different theaters there are different author's editions of Boris Godunov (either the first or the second).

Mussorgsky had little inclination towards music in "finished" forms (symphonic, chamber, etc.). Of Mussorgsky's orchestral works, besides those already mentioned, the Intermezzo (composed in, instrumented in) deserves attention, built on a theme reminiscent of the music of the 18th century, and published among Mussorgsky's posthumous works, with Rimsky-Korsakov's instrumentation. The orchestral fantasy Night on Bald Mountain (the material of which was subsequently included in the opera Sorochinskaya Fair) was also completed and instrumented by N. Rimsky-Korsakov and performed with great success in St. Petersburg; this is a brightly colorful picture of the "coven of the spirits of darkness" and "the magnificence of Chernobog."

Another outstanding work of Mussorgsky is Pictures at an Exhibition, written for piano in 1874, as musical illustrations-episodes for watercolors by V. A. Hartmann. The form of this work is a “through” suite-rondo with sections soldered together, where the main theme-refrain (“Promenade”) expresses the change of moods when walking from one painting to another, and the episodes between this theme are the very images of the paintings in question. This work has repeatedly inspired other composers to create its orchestral editions, the most famous of which belongs to Maurice Ravel (one of Mussorgsky's most staunch admirers).

In the 19th century, Mussorgsky's works were published by the firm V. Bessel and Co. in St. Petersburg; much was also published in Leipzig by the firm of MP Belyaev. In the 20th century, urtext editions of Mussorgsky's works in original versions began to appear, based on a thorough study of the original sources. The pioneer of such activity was the Russian musicologist P. Ya. Lamm, who for the first time published the urtext claviers Boris Godunov and Khovanshchina, the author's editions of all Mussorgsky's vocal and piano works.

The works of Mussorgsky, in many respects anticipating a new era, had a tremendous influence on the composers of the 20th century. The attitude to the musical fabric as an expressive extension of human speech and the coloristic nature of its harmonic language played an important role in the formation of the "impressionistic" style of C. Debussy and M. Ravel (by their own admission), Mussorgsky's style, dramaturgy and imagery greatly influenced creativity L. Janachek, I. Stravinsky, D. Shostakovich (characteristically, they are all composers of Slavic culture), A. Berg (the dramaturgy of his opera "Wozzeck" on the principle of "scene-fragment" is very close to "Boris Godunov"), O Messiaen and many others.

Major works

• "Boris Godunov" (1869, 2nd edition 1872)
• "Khovanshchina" (1872-80, completed by N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov, 1883)
• "Kalistrat",
• "Orphan"
• "Sorochinsky Fair" (1874-80, completed by Ts. A. Cui, 1916),
• satirical romances "Seminarian" and "Classic" (1870)
• vocal cycle "Children's" (1872),
• piano cycle "Pictures at an Exhibition" (1874),
• vocal cycle "Without the Sun" (1874),
• vocal cycle "Songs and Dances of Death" (1877)
• symphonic poem "Night on Bald Mountain"

Memory

Monument at the grave of Mussorgsky

Streets named after Mussorgsky in cities

Monuments to Mussorgsky in cities

• Karevo village

Other objects

• Ural State Conservatory in Yekaterinburg.
• Opera and ballet theater in St. Petersburg.
• Musical school in St. Petersburg.

see also

Bibliography

Antonina Vasilyeva. Russian labyrinth. Biography of M. P. Mussorgsky. Pskov regional printing house, 2008.

• Roerich N. K. Mussorgsky // Artists of Life. - Moscow: International Center of the Roerichs, 1993. - 88 p.
• V. V. Stasov, article in Vestnik Evropy (May and June).
• V. V. Stasov, "Perov and M." (“Russian Antiquity”, 1883, vol. XXXVIII, pp. 433-458);
• V. V. Stasov, "M. P. Mussorgsky. In memory of him ("Histor. Vestn.", 1886, March); his own, "In Memory of M." (St. Petersburg, 1885);
• V. Baskin, “M. P. M. Biographical. essay "(" Russ. Thought ", 1884, books 9 and 10; separately, M., 1887);
• S. Kruglikov, "M. and his" Boris Godunov ("Artist", 1890, No. 5);
• P. Trifonov, “Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky” (“Vestn. Evropy”, 1893, Dec.).
• Tumanina N., M. P. Mussorgsky, M. - L., 1939;
• Asafiev B.V., Izbr. works, vol. 3, M., 1954;
• Orlova A., Works and days of MP Mussorgsky. Chronicle of life and creativity, M., 1963
• Khubov G., Mussorgsky, M., 1969.
• Shlifshtein S. Mussorgsky. Artist. Time. Fate. M., 1975
• Rakhmanova M. Mussorgsky and his time. - Soviet music, 1980, No. 9-10
• MP Mussorgsky in the memoirs of his contemporaries. M., 1989

Links

• Mussorgsky Modest A site about Mussorgsky.
• Mussorgsky Modest A site about the life and work of the Russian composer.
• Mussorgsky Modest Creative portrait at Belcanto.Ru.

Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky is a great Russian composer whose compositions were inspired by historical and folklore traditions. Deliberately ignoring the established canons of Western music, the innovative creator created works with a unique national flavor that glorified the power and original character of the Russian people. The opera "Boris Godunov" became an example of vocal and symphonic fundamentalism and influenced the work of many composers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Childhood and youth

Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky, a hereditary nobleman, was born on March 9, 1839 in the Karevo estate, located in the Pskov province, 400 km from St. Petersburg. Parents, wealthy landowners, descended from the famous Smolensk princes, who were descendants of the great Rurik dynasty.

Pyotr Alekseevich Mussorgsky was the son of a guards officer, the owner of a vast estate in the Toropetsk district. Having inherited the estate, he left the service in the St. Petersburg Senate and married Yulia Ivanovna Chirikova, the daughter of a retired military man from the neighboring village of Naumovo.

Since his parents had no shortage of funds, Modest's childhood passed in an atmosphere of constant celebration. Surrounded by the cares of the nanny, the boy from an early age felt a taste for Russian songs and fairy tales and was imbued with the spirit of folk traditions and customs, and his mother instilled in her son a taste for classical music and began to teach him the basics of playing the piano. At the age of 7, the future composer easily picked up complex piano pieces by ear and supplemented them with his own improvisations.

At the age of 10, Mussorgsky was sent to a German educational institution located in St. Petersburg, where the boy continued his music lessons under the supervision of pianist and teacher Anton Avgustovich Gercke and in 1852 presented the first independently composed piece for piano. Parents rejoiced at the creative success of their son, but they did not seriously consider a creative career. The descendants of the military honored family traditions and soon placed Modest in the school of guards officers, where strictness and discipline reigned.

The young man accepted the tough regime of the institution, but did not stop making music. Thanks to his innate talent and acquired skill, Mussorgsky became the soul of the company and regularly performed at parties and holidays organized at the school. Then Modest began his path to alcoholism, which was an integral part of the rampant student life of that time.

In 1856, the future composer graduated from the Guards School and was assigned to the St. Petersburg Preobrazhensky Regiment. Having settled in the capital, he met with the military and creative Russian elite.

Soon, the young officer became a regular participant in parties in the composer's house and became friends with famous Russian cultural figures in the person of Vladimir Stasov, Caesar Cui and. The latter took up the "education" and musical education of Mussorgsky, who decided to leave military service for the sake of a full-fledged musical career.

Music

Mussorgsky's creative biography began with instrumental transcriptions of symphonic works to hone his skills in composing and arranging musical parts. In the process of work, the novice composer realized that small genres did not correspond to the scope of his soul and the breadth of his imagination, therefore, having written a sonata for piano, 2 orchestral scherzos and a piece called "Shamil's March", Modest Petrovich thought about opera.

For 3 years, Mussorgsky composed a work based on the tragedy "Oedipus Rex", then switched to the plot of Flaubert's "Salambo", and after a while he took up the adaptation of "The Night on the Eve of Ivan Kupala". After writing a number of fragments, the author lost interest in projects and did not complete any of them.

In the early 1860s, Modest Petrovich began experimenting with musical genres and wrote a number of songs based on poems by great poets, among which the Song of the Elder, Tsar Saul and Kalistrat became the most famous. These works marked the beginning of the folk tradition in the composer's work and were distinguished by acute social themes and extraordinary musical drama.

This was followed by a series of genre romances "Svetik-Savishna", "Song of Yarema", "Seminarian" and others, which gained incredible popularity among contemporaries and caused mixed responses from listeners. And in 1867, the symphonic work “Midsummer Night on Bald Mountain”, originally conceived as a choral work, saw the light.

Collaborating with fellow composers who united in the circle "The Mighty Handful", Mussorgsky absorbed national traditional ideas and new trends that arose in connection with the changed political situation. The consequence of this was an inevitable desire to convey a complete picture of the dramatic events that took place in Rus' in the past and took place in the present.

The musicians sought to bring creativity closer to reality and looked for non-traditional forms. One of the results of these searches was Mussorgsky's humorous work The Marriage, which the author called a "talk opera", which became the training of the great Russian talent before creating the world-famous monumental masterpiece called Boris Godunov.

Work on the Pushkin story began in 1868 and progressed so rapidly that over the next year the composer created a piano score and completed the main score. An interesting fact is that Modest Petrovich nurtured ideas for future works for a long time and, when composing music, almost never used drafts.

Following the historical and poetic idea, Mussorgsky focused on 2 topics, the fate of man and the fate of the people, and abandoned solo numbers in favor of large-scale choral scenes. It is for this reason that the first edition of Boris Godunov did not satisfy the management of the Mariinsky Theatre, which refused to stage the opera in 1870.

Enlisting the support of colleagues, Modest Petrovich reworked the work as soon as possible, changing the storyline and adding several characters. In addition, the finale, which was a massive folk scene, became a bold point in the new version of the work. The abundance of folklore melodies and colorful naturalistic images made "Boris Godunov" the greatest example of operatic art and brought greatness and glory to the creator. The premiere of the work took place in St. Petersburg in February 1874.

Having enjoyed success and received a portion of unjustified criticism, Mussorgsky took up the embodiment of a new creative idea, turning to the topic of bloody streltsy riots. Work on "Khovanshchina" did not progress as quickly as the author would like. He was constantly distracted by other projects, writing songs and romances, which he eventually combined into the vocal collection "Children's", as well as piano pieces known as "Pictures at an Exhibition".

In the mid-1870s, putting aside the notebook with sketches of Khovanshchina, Modest Petrovich composed the vocal cycle Songs and Dances of Death and presented to his colleagues several fragments of another opera called Sorochinskaya Fair.

Over the next years, Mussorgsky was torn between two new creations, but the difficult financial situation, close to poverty, interfered with full-fledged work and affected the physical and mental state of the composer. In 1879, friends arranged for Modest Petrovich to tour the cities of Russia and established a fund to support the talented writer. This helped Mussorgsky hold out for 2 years, but the operas Khovanshchina and Sorochinskaya Fair remained unfinished.

Personal life

Mussorgsky spent most of his life in St. Petersburg, moving in the society of the cultural and creative elite. The members of the "Mighty Handful" became a second family for the composer, with whom he shared success and adversity, victories and defeats.

Despite the fact that Modest Petrovich moved in society, he was not happy in his personal life and had neither a wife nor children. The only lady to whom the writer had tender feelings was Lyudmila Ivanovna Shestakova, sister, who answered Mussorgsky with heartfelt maternal affection. Letters preserved in the creative archive of the composer became evidence of these relations.

Death

In the early 1870s, Mussorgsky's health left much to be desired. A turbulent youth with endless parties and revelry led to the fact that at the age of 40 the composer began to experience bouts of insanity, the cause of which was alcohol abuse.

Fearing for his own sanity, Modest Petrovich hired a personal doctor, George Carrick, the current president of the St. Petersburg Society of Physicians, and with his help he tried to get rid of his addiction.

The crisis came when Mussorgsky was fired from the service. The composer, driven to poverty, survived 4 attacks of delirium tremens and ended up in the hospital. Friends, among whom was the artist who painted the composer's dying portrait, paid for the treatment, but this only delayed the inevitable for a while.

On March 16, 1881, Modest Petrovich again fell into insanity, and another attack of meth-alcohol psychosis caused the death of the great Russian composer. A few days later, Mussorgsky's colleagues buried Mussorgsky in St. Petersburg on the territory of the Alexander Nevsky Monastery, and in 1972 a museum dedicated to the life and work of the author of Boris Godunov was opened in his mother's family mansion.

Musical works

• 1857-1866 - "Young years"
• 1859 - Shamil's March
• 1867 - "Night on Bald Mountain"
• 1868 - "Marriage"
• 1869 - "Boris Godunov"
• 1870 - "Children's"
• 1873 - "Khovanshchina"
• 1874 - "Sorochinsky Fair"
• 1874 - "Without the sun"
• 1874 - "Pictures at an Exhibition"
• 1877 - "Songs and Dances of Death"