Скачать или смотреть COMPOSER OF THE WEEK: 31. Modest Mussorgsky

Born: March 21, 1839; Karevo, Russian Empire
Died: March 28, 1881; Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire
Nationality: Russian
Occupation: Composer

Modest Mussorgsky was a Russian composer who was born on March 21, 1839 and died on March 28, 1881.

He was one of the group of five composers (Mily Balakirev (the leader), César Cui, Modest Mussorgsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Alexander Borodin) known as "The Five.” He was an innovator of Russian music in the Romantic era and tried to establish a unique Russian musical identity, often challenging the established conventions of Western music.

Many of his works were inspired by Russian history, Russian folklore and other Russian-related themes, such as the opera "Boris Godunov", the orchestral tone poem "Night on Bald Mountain" and the piano suite "Pictures at an Exhibition".

Over the years, Mussorgsky's works were primarily known as versions revised or completed by other composers, and many of them posthumously appeared as original forms. He has inspired many Russian composers, including Dmitri Shostakovich and Sergei Prokofiev.

His opera "Boris Godunov", about the life of the Russian tsar, was initially rejected by the Mariinsky Opera, and thus Mussorgsky edited it and made a final version in 1874. Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov revised this piece in 1908, and in particular Shostakovich revised it into two versions for film and stage.

His opera "Khovanshchina" was unfinished and unperformed at the time of Mussorgsky's death, but Rimsky-Korsakov completed it and premiered in Saint Petersburg in 1886.

His another opera, "The Fair at Sorochyntsi" was left unfinished due to his death, but the "Hopak" included in this piece is frequently performed.

Mussorgsky's most imaginative and frequently performed work is the "Pictures at an Exhibition", a piano suite describing paintings in sound. Best known through an orchestral arrangement by Maurice Ravel, this piece was written in commemoration of his friend, the architect and painter Viktor Hartmann.

Mussorgsky's orchestral work "Night on Bald Mountain" gained broad popularity when it was featured in Walt Disney’s animated film “Fantasia” in 1940.

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