The following years were difficult for Mussorgsky. He had a lot of depression. He composed some piano pieces and some songs. It was also a difficult time for his family who lost a lot of their wealth in 1861 when the new tsar of Russia ordered that the serfs could be free. Mussorgsky became a member of a group of five composers who became known as the Mighty Handful. The other four were Balakirev, Borodin, Cui and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. The five were not together for very long. The others became too busy with careers outside music, or their musical tastes became very different from Mussorgsky’s. In 1863 he started to compose an opera "Salammbô" but he never finished it.
Mussorgsky was very upset when his mother died in 1865. He started to drink heavily.
In 1867 he finished the original orchestral version of his "Night on Bald Mountain". Balakirev did not like it and refused to conduct it, so it was never performed during Mussorgsky’s lifetime.
Mussorgsky continued his career as a civil servant, but often he was not paid. He was very impressed by Dargomïzhsky’s new opera "The Stone Guest" and composed eleven scenes for an opera called "The Marriage". This, too, remained unfinished. However, he learned a lot from working at these unfinished works, and developed his own style which was to be used in his greatest work: "Boris Godunov". He learned a way of setting words to music that would keep the words flowing in a natural way which heightened their meaning. It was very different from the old-style operas where music was divided sharply into arias and recitatives with a few choruses.
When he was 29 he was encouraged to write an opera on the historical story of Boris Godunov. He based his opera on a play by Alexander Pushkin, but he also read history books by Nikolay Karamzin. He worked at the opera for a year while living with friends and working for the Forestry Department. In 1871 he had finished it, but it was not allowed to be performed in the theatre because it did not have an important part for a female. Mussorgsky changed the opera, adding a whole new act with a love scene with a Polish princess. He made other changes as well. The new version was accepted. The first performance of the complete opera took place in February 1874. Mussorgsky was then at the height of his fame.
After this Mussorgsky’s life became gradually worse. He was depressed, and had fits of madness. He was drinking heavily. He still managed to compose. He wrote a song cycle
"Sunless", a piano suite "Pictures at an Exhibition" and started two operas: "Khovanschina" and "The Fair at Sorochyntsi". A lot of his friends were drinking, and many of them died. He was lucky to keep his job: his boss was very keen on music and allowed him a lot of time off work. However, in 1880 he eventually lost his job. He was very poor. A group of friends got together to give him money so that he could finish the two operas he was composing. He almost managed to finish "Khovanschina" but "The Fair at Sorochyntsi" remained unfinished. He became ill. The famous painter Repin made a painting of the composer, showing him with a red nose and glazed eyes. He died a week after his 42nd birthday.
Mussorgsky's music uses Russian musical themes. His music influenced later composers such as Dmitri Shostakovich and Sergei Prokofiev. His greatest work was the opera "Boris Godunov" which was about an historical character who illegally made himself tsar of Russia, but dies when he feels guilty about the murder he had committed.
"Khovanshchina" was left unfinished and was completed by Rimsky-Korsakov. It was first performed in 1886 in Saint Petersburg. This opera, too, was revised by Shostakovich. "The Fair at Sorochyntsi" remained unfinished. It includes a dance, a Gopak, which is very well-known.
Perhaps his best-known work is "Pictures at an Exhibition". It was written for piano, but later the French composer Maurice Ravel arranged it for orchestra, and this version is very often performed today at concerts. A short orchestral piece "Night on Bald Mountain" is also very often performed.
Mussorgsky wrote a number of songs including three short song cycles: "The Nursery" (1872), "Sunless" (1874) and "Songs and Dances of Death" (1877). One very well-known song is "Mephistopheles' Song of the Flea".
Provost
In the United States, the Provost is the chief academic officer of a college or university. Different schools have different rules for what the Provost does, but most Provosts deal with issues about hiring and dismissing professors and giving out tenure, handling complaints about academic programs, and deciding what the general academic policies are for the school. In other countries, the Provost is sometimes the leader of the whole college or university.
Robert Kocharian
Robert Kocharian is the president of Armenia. He is the second president Armenia has had since it left the Soviet Union. On August 31 1954 Robert Kocharian was born in Nagorno-Karabakh, in the city of Stepanakert. As president of Armenia, Kocharian has been talking to the president of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, about what to do with the land of Nagorno-Karabakh, which the two countries had a war over.
Armenians
The Armenians are an ethnic group from the Caucasus. Their country is Armenia. The Armenian culture is very old. Armenia was the first country to be Christian, when the Armenian king Tiridates III changed his religion by St. Gregory the Illuminator. Because of this, many Armenians are Christians.
In the Assyrian period, the Armenian people of Nairi formed the kingdom of Ararat (well known in Assyrian as Urartu). One of the earliest record of Armenians is from a text which says "Armani", Արման (most common Armenian name Arman, the older variant of Armen, Արմեն) together with Ibla, as land conquered by Naram-Sin (2300 BC) identified with an Akkadian colony in the Diarbekr region. To this day the Assyrians speak about Armenians by saying "Armani". Another record is by Thutmose III of Egypt, says the people of "Ermenen" in 1446 BC, and says in their land "heaven rests upon its four pillars". (Thutmose was the first Pharaoh to cross the Euphrates to reach the Armenian Highlands). To this day Kurds and Turks refer to Armenians by "Ermeni".
Historically, the name "Armenian" has come to internationally designate this group of people from the most common Armenian names: Arman, Արման (Armenians use Arman, the older variant of Armen, Արմեն), Armen, and Armin'e (female name). Armenians call themselves "Hay" (Հայ, pronounced "Hye"; plural: Հայեր, "Hayer"). The word has traditionally been linked to the name of the legendary founder of the Armenian nation, Haik, which is also a popular Armenian name.
Some scholars believe, for example, that the earliest mention of the Armenians is in the Akkadian inscriptions dating to the 28th-27th centuries BC, in which the Armenians are referred to as the sons of Haya, after the regional god of the Armenian Highlands.
Mass Rapid Transit (Singapore)
The Mass Rapid Transit or MRT (Chinese: 大众快速交通 or more commonly known as 地铁; Malay: "Sistem Pengangkutan Gerak Cepat"; Tamil: சிங்கை துரிதக் கடவு ரயில்) is a rapid transit system in Singapore.
It is a rapid transit system which links the different places of Singapore together using a network, or different connections of trains. When a person travels from one place to another, he or she boards a train in a train station and then the train moves until the train reaches the place he or she wants to come out, or alight from. Sometimes he or she has to change trains.