Classical Net - Basic Repertoire List - Mussorgsky Modest Mussorgsky (1839 - 1881) Along with Piotr Ilyitch Tchaikovsky , the greatest Russian composer of the Nineteenth Century, Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky (March 9, 1839 - March 16, 1881) was born into a wealthy rural, landowning family. He began by picking out on the piano the tunes he heard from the serfs on his family's estate. At the age of six, he began to study piano with his mother. His parents initially set him out on the career of military officer. He became a cadet and finally commissioned in an elite imperial regiment. Two years later, in 1858, he resigned his commission. During this time, he met a musically-inclined army doctor: Alexander Borodin . The two became friends. In 1861, with Russia's emancipation of the serfs, his family lost significant income, and he was forced to earn a living.

In 1863, he began a spotty career in the civil service, which dismissed him at least twice. In 1856, he met the composer Dargomïzhsky, who in turn introduced him to Cesar Cui, Mily Balakirev, and a critic named Victor Stasov. Gradually, Borodin and Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakoff joined to form a loose group known as the "Moguchaya Kuchka" ("the mighty handful" or "the mighty bunch"). All but Stasov nursed ambitions to compose, and all had very definite ideas about what Russian music should be. None of them had formal training in composition. Balakirev and Mussorgsky essentially taught themselves by playing through piano-duet arrangements of orchestral scores. For Russian composers of the time, this was not unusual. Neither Mikhail Glinka , the founder of the nationalist school, nor Dargomïzhsky had formally studied. After all, the first Russian music conservatory had been founded only relatively recently. All were, to one degree or another, amateurs. Rimsky, for example, was a naval officer, Borodin a doctor and chemist.

Most writers consider Tchaikovsky the first great Russian composer to have had thorough academic training along German lines. Mussorgsky absorbed these main ideas of the Kuchka: Russian music should express the Russian soul. Russian music should be written in a Russian way. The latter idea meant mainly a rejection of German classical forms in favor of one-off, "organic" forms. Instead of a form determining the nature of the musical materials, the materials shaped the forms – bottom-up, rather than top-down. The Kuchka got these ideas from German Romantic aestheticians and revered those artists who wrote accordingly, like Franz Liszt and Hector Berlioz . Mussorgsky learned composition mainly by doing. His early efforts are in the expected short forms: songs, piano morceaux, and so on. His "apprentice" instrumental works, with the exception of his remarkable Intermezzo in modo classico (1862, describing Russian peasants stepping on and sinking into snowdrifts), are things you could get from just about anybody at the time. However, most of his early songs owe little to any predecessor.

Practically from the get-go, Mussorgsky found something original, even among Russian composers, which may arise from the fact that he alone of all the Kuchka grew up in the country, away from the city. He actually heard serfs sing daily as part of his normal environment, and the "crudities" that others tended to soften attracted him in the first place. He also had larger ambitions, encouraged by Balakirev and Stasov. He began several opera projects: an Oedipus (1858-61), a Salammbô (1863-66); and most notably The Marriage (1868), based on Gogol. He completed none of them, for one reason or another, but all of them bore fruit in later works, either by providing numbers Mussorgsky re-used or, in the case of The Marriage, clarifying his ideas of word-setting. He first thought that music should set the patterns of speech "realistically," as Dargomïzhsky had first theorized. While this was fine for songs, The Marriage convinced Mussorgsky that it would not work over a longer span, and he abandoned the opera after composing one act.

Much of the rest of is career is spent finding new expressive ways to create a melody, especially for the stage. Nevertheless, The Marriage counts as the most radical experiment in musical realism among the Russian nationalists. In 1867, Mussorgsky also composed St. John's Night on Bald Mountain (usually called Night on Bald Mountain), depicting a gathering of witches and demons for a black sabbath. While one can cite predecessors like Berlioz and Liszt for such an idea, nobody had come up with such crazy sounds before – shattering dissonance and wild cries as savage as anything in Igor Stravinsky 's Rite of Spring, more than four decades in the future. Mussorgsky revised it at least twice to fit it into later, unrealized projects – Mlada (1872, a group opera by the Kuchka never completed) and the composer's own unfinished opera Sorochintsï Fair. After his abandonment of The Marriage, Mussorgsky began working on a Stasov suggestion, the opera Boris Godunov.

The composer completed a version in 1869 and submitted it to the Mariinsky Theater, who rejected it, mainly due to the fact that Mussorgsky had provided no role for a prima donna. Mussorgsky took back the score and at once began to revise it, altering the work far beyond what the theater had asked for. In general, he moved from the musical realism of the first version to a folk-based arioso, extremely subtle and flexible dramatically. He resubmitted his new version in 1872. The theater accepted it, and after some wrangling with the censor, Boris premiered in 1874. This was to provide Mussorgsky his greatest public triumph. He was considered the young man to watch. However, all did not go smoothly. In 1865, following his mother's death, Mussorgsky began to go on drinking binges. He would disappear for days, even weeks at a time and turn up on friends' doorsteps physically ill. He had to borrow money to drink. In 1880, he lost his government sinecure. Even the lax imperial bureaucracy could no longer tolerate his unreliability.

Nevertheless, he continued to compose, almost up to the end. However, he completed very little and left two operas, Khovanshchina and Sorochintsï Fair incomplete. He never was a steady worker. Throughout his career, he composed in a white-hot rush and then seemed to fall into lassitude, during which time he mainly drank. His behavior, always a bit eccentric, degenerated into the erratic. His landlord kicked him out in the street for failure to pay rent. He showed up at the door of a friend, who took him in. However, after suffering seizures, he was moved to a hospital, where he seemed to rally, but it turned out he had bribed an orderly to bring him cognac. He died after roughly a month, at the age of 42. Because he began late and died young, almost all of Mussorgsky's music can be considered early work. Yet he progressed at a frankly incredible rate, went through at least three major changes of style, and even conducted successful "one-off" experiments. His songs lie at the center of his achievement and form the basis of much of his dramatic work.

There's an astonishing variety, from "realistic" portraits, to evocation of peasant song, dramatic monologues (from a child) in The Nursery (1870), psychological expressionism and a non-Wagnerian chromaticism in Sunless (1874), and a new pre- Mahler poetry in Songs and Dances of Death (1877). Instrumental works play less of a role, although even here he wrote masterpieces: the aforementioned Night on Bald Mountain and the piano cycle Pictures at an Exhibition (1874). If he had composed only the last, he would be considered an eminence in Russian music. The piece is new not only in its details (bar-by-bar meter changes, startlingly original chord progressions and piano textures) but in its form – Romantic character-pieces linked by interludes varying a basic theme, with the final variation absorbed into the last character-piece. Mussorgsky was recognized by both the Kuchka and Tchaikovsky (who came to oppose the Kuchka) as a powerful musical force. However, none of them knew quite what to make of him.

Rimsky-Korsakoff, for example, regarded some of his friend's boldest strokes as mistakes, particularly in his harmonies. As a labor of love and at considerable cost to his own career, he went about revising Mussorgsky's major works including Boris, Khovanshchina, Night on Bald Mountain, and part of Pictures. For many years, the only performances of these works were in Rimsky's editions, and to a great extent Rimsky kept Mussorgsky's name alive in the concert halls and on the opera stages. However, the myth grew of Mussorgsky the naïve genius, a pure heart who found his way to artistic truth despite his lack of skill. Scholars have pretty much shot down this myth. Mussorgsky was, if anything, too intellectual, too knowledgeable about contemporary aesthetic philosophy, too self-conscious, to the extent that his mental wrestling with himself cut down even further on his composing. However, he knew what he wanted and felt it his job to flesh out his artistic intuitions. "To new shores" became his motto. As new editions of scores have appeared, what Mussorgsky actually wrote is supplanting what his nineteenth-century editors thought he should have written.

Yet the editions by Rimsky-Korsakoff are beautiful in their own way, and I would think it a shame if they disappeared forever in an excess of scruple. After all, these versions – so "scholarly incorrect" – all by themselves exerted tremendous influence, turning Mussorgsky into an avatar of Modernism, particularly in France with Claude Debussy , Maurice Ravel , Ernest Bloch , and even Stravinsky. Mussorgsky's music challenged the hegemony of German and Italian music in the Nineteenth Century and lay outside the standard Brahms -vs.- Wagner fight. He opened up a new musical path and a new aesthetic attitude. However, it's not his innovations alone that make him so important. Boris Godunov is arguably one of the three greatest operas of its time, the work of a musical dramatist of genius. Mussorgsky's songs, so little known in the West mainly due to language difficulties, put the composer in the exalted company of Schubert, Brahms, and Mahler, and show a greater variety of expression than all three. Patronized by the Nineteenth Century, the composer became a hero to the Twentieth.

~ Steve Schwartz Recommended Recordings Famous Russian Composers – ‘The Five’ Famous Russian Composers – ‘The Five’ by Elena on September 26, 2011 Rimsky-Korsakov, one of 'The Mighty Handful' in 19th Century St Petersburg Exponents of Russian classical music often talk of the ‘The Five’, a group of Russian composers, based in St. Petersburg, who deliberately stressed their national heritage in their music. Those who are classical music buffs should ask Ulko Tours to include some important landmarks connected to ‘The Five’ on their tour of St. Petersburg . Even those who have little experience of this musical genre are likely to find themselves in awe of the fabulous concert halls and moved by modern renditions of the work of ‘The Five’. This influential group of classical composers consisted of Mily Balakirev, often cited as the leader of the group, Alexander Borodin, César Ciu, Modest Mussorgsky (the so-called ‘unruly genius’ of the company), and Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, perhaps the most famous of the members in recent times.

The group of musicians and composers, also known as ‘The Mighty Coterie’ or ‘The Mighty Handful’ met in St. Petersburg and sought to free themselves of foreign influences in their music and remain true to their traditions and Russian culture. The prestige of having such composers associated with it has contributed to St. Petersburg’s reputation as a city of high culture, along with numerous other composers either born in St. Pite’s or attracted to the city over more recent years. The Mighty Handful – Russian Classical Composers The group of composers, who never actually referred to themselves as ‘The Five’, formed between 1856 and 1862, with Ciu and Balakirev meeting initially, followed by Mussorgsky in 1857, Rimsky-Korsakov in 1861, and Borodin making up the quintet a year later. These composers were all young men, with Borodin the eldest at twenty-eight and Rimsky-Korsakov the youngest at eighteen. Balakirev was a composer, pianist, conductor, and teacher and a significant force in 19th Century music, in Russia and around the world.

His most famous composition is likely the 1869 work of ‘Islamey: An Oriental Fantasy’, although other works are easily recognizable when heard. The other members of the group also held down other jobs besides composing, a factor which sets them apart from the elite Conservatory composers of the time, such as Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (also living in St. Petersburg at the time). It was, perhaps, this lesser status which gave ‘The Five’ their freedom to experiment with a different style of Russian music rather than adhere to established rules of composition. Russian Classical Music The Mariinsky Theater was a key venue for 'The Five' Borodin worked as a chemist to make ends meet and, although his musical style has been described as exotic, as one of ‘The Five’, the composer strove to reflect his Russian heritage in his musical works. Borodin’s opera ‘Prince Igor’ opened in 1890 and is, perhaps, his best known work, although his String Quarter No.2 still delights many a classical music aficionado with its richness and roots on Eastern folk music.

As a military officer, Cesar Ciu was something of a spokesperson for ‘The Five’, especially given his career as a journalist and critic, alongside working on compositions. Ciu was Lithuanian by birth, with a French father and a Polish mother, but he sought to create a clear Russian style of classical music alongside the other members of the group. Modest Mussorgsky, composer of the opera ‘Boris Godunov’, was born in 1839 and died in 1881 but the feisty musician managed to cram some considerable moments of genius into his forty-two years. Rimsky-Korsakov, with a name to delight any linguist, is most likely the best known of ‘The Five’ and his suite of symphonies ‘Scheherazade’, based on the ‘Arabian Nights’ are often included in top ten classical music collections. Rimsky-Korsakov was the youngest member of the group of five composers but is credited with lending ‘The Five’ some extra vigor, excitement, and panache. He wrote fifteen operas in all, and his First Symphony has been acclaimed as the first Russian symphony given it its opposition to western influence and nod to Orientialism.

This focus on orientalist style is one of the key things that marks out the work of ‘The Five’, with Balakirev, as the leader, encouraging the use of motifs and themes taken from eastern music, rather than the prevailing Germanic music of the day. Sites of Interest Connected to ‘The Five’ ‘The Mighty Handful’ disbanded in 1870 with some members taking something of a sabbatical from composing. All of ‘The Five’ remain celebrated in St. Petersburg however, and throughout Russia, and their final resting places can be visited in Tikhvin Cemetery in St. Pete’s. Other sites of note include the venues for key performances of pieces by ‘The Five’, such as the Mariinsky Theater, where Mussorgsky’s ‘Boris Godunov’ was performed along with Rimsky-Korsakov’s ‘May Night’ opera. A number of celebrations of classical music, including pieces by ‘The Five’, take place in St. Petersburg throughout the year, with the International Festival Musical Spring in St. Petersburg during May, followed by Musical Olympus in June most years, along with the international chamber music festival St.

Petersburg Palaces also in June, during the White Nights festivities. Visits to the St. Petersburg Conservatoire, the Mariinsky Theater, the memorial apartments of Rimsky-Korsakov, and another famous Russian composer Glinka, can all be included in a private tour of St. Petersburg. Let Ulko Tours know of your love for classical music and a perfectly-tailored tour can be created especially for you, including visits to performances of works by ‘The Five’. Have Tour Questions? Submit the Form or Call: (727) 235-6464 First Name (required) Famous Russian Composers of Classical Music Contact Famous Russian Composers Russian composers have created some of the most beautiful and powerful classical music. They hold a special place in my heart, and they're also separated geographically and historically form the rest of Europe. Since there are so many of them, and they're a tight-knit bunch, I've put several of them here on one page. Of course there's Peter Tchaikovsky as well, but he's famous enough to have his own section.

In the 19th century, a group called The Five (Rimsky-Korsakov, Mussorgsky, Balakirev, Borodin and Cesar Cui) banded together and made their goal the promotion of purely Russian music. Their compositions were inspired by Russian history and folk stories, and used traditional tunes and harmonies. It's the perfect example of nationalist music, which had a huge rise all over Europe towards the end of the 1800s. This was a golden age for Russian classical music. It was only really at this point that the Russian's efforts began to be appreciated by their European peers, who previously thought it was crude and unsophisticated. Here are some of the big names... One of the most skilled and inventive orchestrators of all-time, Rimsky-Korsakov had the ability to create astonishingly rich and creative orchestral sound worlds. His talent wasn't the product of extensive practice, but some innate, maybe even divine, gift. He started out not as a musician, but as a naval officer. During his 3-year long round-the-world cruise as a cadet, he wrote his first symphony. He hadn't had any musical training before so it took him a while!

On his return he was mentored by Mily Balakirev, and then became Professor of Composition at the Saint Petersburg conservatory. He is world-famous for such pieces as the Flight of the Bumblebee (from the opera The Tale of Tsar Saltan), Capriccio Espagnol , and Sheherezade . He wrote 13 operas, three symphonies, and several other orchestral and chamber pieces. Alexander Glazunov (1865-1936) A later Russian composer, Glazunov was introduced to the already famous and established Balakirev and Rimksy-Korsakov at an early age. His talent was huge and he progressed exceptionally quickly. He became the director of the Saint Petersburg conservatory, and later the Leiningrad conservatory after the Russian revolution. But the Soviet government didn't like his methods and his drinking habits, so he eventually fled the country in 1928. His music is a kind of mix of the styles of other Russian composers, with a graceful confidence and wonderfully joyous melodies. Even during his own lifetime the public thought of him as slightly old-fashioned!

Modest Mussorgsky (1839-1881) Mussorgsky's story is one of the most tragic stories of all the Russian composers. His music is also slightly different, with a rawer, harsher sound. Still, the beauty and genius of his music is impossible to deny. His work wasn't recognized enough until after his death, when other composers like Rimsky-Korsakov polished the pieces up to 'performance standard' (although loads of people, including me, now prefer Mussorgsky's dark originals!) He was a hugely talented pianist as a child, but joined a military academy and had an uneventful life in the civil service. His life went on a downward spiral of poverty, depression, and alcoholism , until he died at age 42. He is most remembered for the masterful opera Boris Godunov, the chilling orchestral thunderbolt Night on Bald Mountain , and the Pictures at an Exhibition suite. Alexander Borodin (1833-1887) Ah, the polymath! Known for his achievements in chemistry as much as music, Borodin was a both scientist and composer.

Born into an aristocratic family, he became a member of The Five later in life, even though music was hardly more than a serious hobby for him. Borodin created expansive, floating harmonies in some of his songs for voice and piano, which directly inspired French composer Claude Debussy 's luxuriously free-form harmonies. His most famous works are the two beautiful string quartets, and the opera Prince Igor (from which the popular series of Polovtsian Dances come). Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1843) Rachmaninoff has the reputation of writing dark, sultry, impossibly difficult piano music - at least that's how I see him! This huge-handed Russian gained fame as a concert pianist before becoming even more renowned as a composer. He moved from Russia to the USA. Inspired by Tchaikovsky, his music goes even further and has a richly deep and complex quality, as well as some exceptionally beautiful melodies.

His output includes piano concertos, huge amounts of solo piano music, dozens upon dozens of beautiful songs, the hugely popular Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, grand orchestral tone poems like The Crag, and the deeply spiritual Vespers . Mily Balakirev (1837-1906) The oldest of the Five, and their leader. Balakirev brought them together and led them to create and promote their uniquely Russian music. His influence on the younger Russian composers in his circle is huge - lots of ideas that Rimsky-Korsakov or Mussorgsky used actually originated in Balakirev's head! His music was actually highly original and exciting, but he had a habit of laziness and didn't finish music until sometimes decades after he started writing it. Because of this, he's not as famous as a composer which I think he deserves to be. You can explore more about the lives of these Russian composers and their music by clicking on the links scattered above. Happy reading! Music History 102 Music History 102: Nationalist Composers The nineteenth century was a time in which passionate nationalism was prevalent and which saw many political upheavals.

Influenced by such "nationalistic" works as the Hungarian Rhapsodies of Franz Liszt , composers from many European countries became determined to develop a "national style" of music for their homeland. To do this they turned to the dances, folk songs, history, and national legends of their countries as a basis for their musical compositions. Of the countries that fostered a growth of such a movement, Russia , Bohemia (now part of the Czech Republic), Finland , Spain , England , and the young United States of America produced several outstanding nationalist composers. Modest Mussorgsky Born: Karevo, Pskov district, March 21, 1839 Died: St. Petersburg, March 28, 1881 In Russia, a group of composers emerged that was dubbed "The Mighty Five" by music critics of the day because of their attempts to endow Russia with music of a national flavor. Of these five, the most influential were undoubtedly Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908) and Modest Mussorgsky.

Lacking a true musical training, Mussorgsky relied on his own unique sense of harmony and orchestration, and composed works of rare, unusual, and stark emotion. He completed only a few of his works, among them the piano suite Pictures at an Exhibition, (later brilliantly transcribed for orchestra by Maurice Ravel (1875-1937)), the song cycle Songs and Dances of Death, and what is considered the supreme masterpiece of Russian opera, Boris Godunov. The opera is based on a tragedy by the Russian poet, Alexander Pushkin, and concerns the rise to power of Czar Boris and his tragic reign and downfall. The Coronation scene from "Boris Godunov" is an example of Mussorgsky's use of orchestral color to imitate the ringing bells of the Kremlin during the crowning of Boris. Many of Mussorgsky's works were "touched up" and re-scored after his death by such composers as Rimsky-Korsakov.

In their original scoring, however, one can fully appreciate the crude power and emotionalism Mussorgsky sought to bring to them, as in this performance of A Night on Bald Mountain , a symphonic poem representing a Witches' Sabbath on a haunted mountaintop. Antonín Dvorák Born: Mühlhausen, September 8, 1841 Died: Prague, May 1, 1904 Certainly the greatest composer that Bohemia produced, Dvorák's fame as a musician spread during his lifetime throughout Europe and to America, where he served as artistic director of the National Conservatory in New York City from 1892 to1895. Composing music in almost every conceivable genre during his career, many of his chamber works, symphonies, and concertos have entered the general repertory. The use of Bohemian folk dances in many of his works is typical, and among Dvorák's most successful works are two sets of Slavonic Dances, originally composed for piano, four-hands, and which he later orchestrated. One of the most exciting of these is the Slavonic Dance, op. 46 no. 8.

His nine symphonies are infused with the flavor of the Bohemian countryside, even his most famous, the Symphony No. 9 in E minor, nicknamed "From the New World". It is in the third movements of many of these symphonies where Dvorák gives free rein to the music of his homeland, as he does in the Symphony no. 7 in D minor. Jean Sibelius Born: Hämeenlinna, December 8, 1865 Died: Järvenpää, September 20, 1957 Undoubtedly Finland's greatest composer, Sibelius made his name principally as the composer of seven symphonies, a violin concerto, and a number of symphonic poems. He also wrote a great many songs and pieces for piano, but today these are known mainly in Finland only. Although he never actually quoted folk songs in his music and used traditional harmonies, by concentrating on Finnish legends and fiercely allying himself with Finnish nationalism, Sibelius became something of a national hero during his lifetime.

He achieved renown in his own country with the composition of his tone poem Finlandia, a work of patriotic fervor not unlike the 1812 Overture of Tchaikovsky . But Sibelius' true art is found among the symphonies, in which he developed a personal style of creating structures from fragments and bits of melody, synthesizing them during the course of a movement, such as in the final movement of the Symphony no. 5, op. 82. Born: Down Ampney, Gloucestershire, October 12, 1872 Died: London, August 26, 1958 Since the death of Henry Purcell (1649-1694), England had been called "the land without music." Throughout the eighteenth- and for much of the nineteenth centuries, England produced no composers of any real consequence and made due by importing some of Europe's finest and making them their own. Such composers as Handel , Haydn , and Mendelssohn had been extremely popular in England and wrote a great deal of excellent music for the British public.

But it was not until the middle to late 1800s that a school of British composers began to emerge to rescue English music from a native slumber of over a hundred years. Studying music mostly in his native England (although he did work for a time with Maurice Ravel in Paris), Vaughan Williams became extremely interested in British folk song, and incorporated several folk melodies into some of his orchestral compositions. The composer of nine symphonies, of which the "London" Symphony No. 2 is probably the most famous, Vaughan Williams also composed music for film and radio, choral works, and chamber music. His interest in the music of Great Britain's cultural heritage extended to music of the Tudor and Elizabethan ages, and one of his greatest compositions is also one of his earliest, the Fantasia on a Theme of Thomas Tallis. The work is scored for strings only, itself a curiously English phenomenon, while the melody of the fantasia is in one of the ancient Greek modes. Vaughan Williams' scoring allows for some very effective echo effects, as though the work were being heard in a great cathedral.

The turn of the century saw a number of emerging musical talents in Great Britain, including Sir Edward Elgar (1857-1934), Frederic Delius (1862-1934), Gustav Holst (1874-1934), and later Benjamin Britten . Manuel de Falla Born: 1876 Died: 1946 Spain awoke from years of musical slumber with the advent of Isaac Albéniz (1860-1909), who wrote much music with a Spanish flavor for piano solo. Following in Albéniz' footsteps were Enrique Granados (1867-1916), Joaquin Rodrigo (b. 1901), and Manuel de Falla. The final dance from the latter's ballet The Three-Cornered Hat is of unmistakably Spanish origin, as is the music of each of these composers. Perhaps not surprisingly, much of the music of these composers has been very successfully transcribed for the guitar by such masters of the instrument as Julian Bream, Andres Segovia, and John Williams.

Charles Ives Born: Danbury, Conn., October 20, 1874 Died: New York, May 19, 1954 Music in early America had a distinctly British heritage, as much of the music of the American colonists consisted of English hymns and anthems. Later many American-born musicians went to Europe for their musical training, where they learned and absorbed the Old World traditions. Upon returning to the United States, American composers began infusing these traditional musical forms with styles that were inherent to America, among them African-American spirituals, blues, jazz, and ragtime, in an attempt to create a truly "American classical music." Although the United States produced several popular composers throughout the nineteenth century (including song-writer Stephen Foster (1826-1864), pianist-composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829-1869), band leader John Philip Sousa (1854-1932), and jazz and ragtime composer Scott Joplin (1868-1917)) the first true great American composer would undoubtedly have to be Charles Ives.

An American original who composed music using experimental techniques and ideas, Ives made his living as a prosperous insurance salesman. He studied music formally at Yale, but much of this music was never performed until after 1930, by which time Ives had ceased composing. Much of his music, including four symphonies, many orchestral pieces, piano and chamber works, incorporate traditional American hymns, songs and dance tunes. Ives sets these, however, using polyrhythms and polytonality, making much use of dissonant harmonies and tone clusters. One such work is "Putnam's Camp" from Three Places in New England, in which one hears a brass band, a march tune, and an out-of-tune piano occurring at the same time within the first minute of the piece. Ives was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1947 for his Symphony No. 3, which he had composed in 1904. With the late "discovery" of Ives' music, the path was cleared for a new breed of twentieth century American composers .

Music History 102: a Guide to Western Composers and their music Designed, compiled and created by Robert Sherrane Great Russian Composers: Modest Mussorgsky (Video 2004) - IMDb IMDb There was an error trying to load your rating for this title. Some parts of this page won't work property. Please reload or try later. X Beta I'm Watching This! Keep track of everything you watch; tell your friends. Error Great Russian Composers: Modest Mussorgsky ( 2004 ) 25min Add Image Add an image Do you have any images for this title? Edit Storyline Modest Mussorgsky was the most original and influential of the 19th century Russian nationalist composers. His songs, among the finest of the 19th century, reflect his desire to reproduce the rhythms of Russian speech. So also does his masterpiece, the opera Boris Godunov (1868).

Mussorgsky's other major works include the piano suite Pictures at an Exhibition (1874), orchestrated in 1922 by the French composer Maurice Ravel), the symphonic poem Night on Bare Mountain (1867) and the unfinished opera Kovanshchina completed by Rimsky-Korsakov. Written by G. Forman Russian music : the 19th century and the 20th century Russian culture Before the 18th century, Russian music was dominated by folk and church music. Secular music on a Western model began to be cultivated in the 1730s, when the Empress Anna Ivanovna imported an Italian opera troupe to entertain her court. By the end of the 18th century, there was a small body of comic operas based on Russian librettos, some by native composers and others by foreign maestri di cappella (Italian: “choirmasters”). The first Russian composer to gain international renown was Mikhail Glinka, a leisured aristocrat who mastered his craft in Milan and Berlin.

His patriotic A Life for the Tsar (1836) and his Pushkin-inspired Ruslan and Lyudmila (1842) are the oldest Russian operas that remain in the standard repertoire. Music of Russia in 19th century By the second half of the 19th century, an active musical life was in place, thanks mainly to the efforts of the composer and piano virtuoso Anton Rubinstein, who with royal patronage founded in St. Petersburg Russia’s first regular professional orchestra (1859) and conservatory of music (1862). Both became models that were quickly imitated in other urban centres. The first major full-time professional composer in Russia was Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, a member of the initial graduating class of Rubinstein’s conservatory. Tchaikovsky’s powerful compositions (e.g., Swan Lake, The Nutcracker, and The Sleeping Beauty) are still performed widely today. Other composers of Tchaikovsky’s generation were self-taught and usually earned their living in nonmusical occupations.

They include Modest Mussorgsky, who worked in the civil service, Aleksandr Borodin, equally famous in his day as a chemist, and Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov, who eventually gave up a naval career to become a professor at the St. Petersburg conservatory. Culture in Russia. Encarta The self-taught composers tended to effect a more self-consciously nationalistic style than the conservatory-bred Tchaikovsky, and among their most important works were operas such as Mussorgsky’s Boris Godunov (final version first performed 1874) and Borodin’s Prince Igor (first perf. 1890), along with Rimsky-Korsakov’s symphony Scheherazade (first perf. 1888). Russian music : 20th century Three major Russian composers emerged in the early 20th century: Aleksandr Scriabin, Sergey Rachmaninoff, and Igor Stravinsky. Scriabin, a piano virtuoso, infused his music with mysticism and evolved a modernistic idiom through which he created a musical counterpart to the Symbolist literature of the period.

Rachmaninoff, also a major pianist, is best known for his concerti and for his Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini (1954) for piano and orchestra. Stravinsky, a pupil of Rimsky-Korsakov, was catapulted to early fame through his association with Sergey Diaghilev, for whose Ballets Russes he composed a trio of sensational works that received their premieres in Paris: The Firebird (1910), Petrushka (1911), and The Rite of Spring (1913). Both Stravinsky (in 1914) and Rachmaninoff (in 1917) emigrated from Russia, first to western Europe and then to the United States, though Stravinsky made several returns to Russia toward the end of his career. Soviet music was dominated by Sergey Prokofiev, who returned in the mid-1930s from his postrevolutionary emigration, and Dmitry Shostakovich, who spent his entire career in Soviet Russia.

While living abroad Prokofiev was a modernist like Stravinsky, but he eventually adopted a more conservative, accessible idiom in conformity with Soviet expectations. Prokofiev’s most ambitious early work was the opera The Fiery Angel (radio premiere 1954), after a Symbolist novel by Valery Bryusov. The crowning works of his Soviet period were the ballet Romeo and Juliet (1935–36), the cantata Aleksandr Nevsky (1939; adapted from the music that he had written for Sergey Eisenstein’s film of the same name), and the operatic interpretation (1942) of Tolstoy’s classic novel War and Peace. Shostakovich is best known as a prolific composer of instrumental music, with 15 symphonies and 15 string quartets to his credit.

His promising career as a stage composer was cut short when, in 1936, his very successful opera The Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, after a novella by Nikolay Leskov, was denounced in Pravda (“Truth”), the official publication of the Communist Party, and banned (not to be performed again until the 1960s). He and many other Russian artists also suffered repression in the Zhdanovshchina period (1946–53), during which Soviet authorities attempted to exert greater control over art. Popular music in Russia Popular music also produced a number of renowned figures, not all of whom enjoyed official sanction. Particularly notable is the legacy of two “balladeers”—songwriters who performed their own works to guitar accompaniment. The raspy-voiced actor and musician Vladimir Vysotsky, whose songs circulated on thousands of bootleg cassettes throughout the 1960s and ’70s, was perhaps the best-known performer in the Soviet Union until his death in 1980. Georgian Bulat Okudzhava had an almost equally loyal following.

Jazz flourished with the sanction of Soviet authorities and evolved into one of the country’s most popular musical forms. The Ganelin Trio, perhaps Russia’s most famous jazz ensemble, toured Western countries throughout the 1980s. The pop singer Alla Pugacheva also drew large audiences in the 1970s. Until the 1970s, rock musicians in Russia were content to reproduce not only the styles but the songs of British and American models; however, by the early 1980s Russian rock had found its native voice in the band Akvarium (“Aquarium”), led by charismatic songwriter and vocalist Boris Grebenshikov. The band’s “concerts,” played in living rooms and dormitories, were often broken up by the police, and, like Vysotsky, the band circulated its illegal music on bootleg cassettes, becoming the legendary catalyst of an underground counterculture and an inspiration to other notable bands, such as Kino. Both rock and pop music continued to flourish in post-Soviet Russia.

Britannica enciclopedia Russian culture, including beliefs, language, holidays, cuisine, humor, religions, society, and classical, rock and underground music � Guide to Russia RUSSIAN CULTURE ► RUSSIAN CLASSICAL MUSIC A national history of something Russians are very good at пїЅ classical music. (ThereпїЅs a bit about other types of music here too.) When people decide to visit Russia, they endure the headaches that come with obtaining a visa and the long and arduous flight. (If you are not from the Antipodes or thereabouts you have no right to complain about the flight пїЅ ed.) But what all these tourists have in common is that they appreciate the art, architecture, and history of Russia, and want to learn more about it. Classical music is one of the most highly-revered arts in Russia. Russian classical music has a distinctive history, separate from Western Europe and at the same time highly influenced by Western countries. Some of the most internationally-renowned composers came St. Petersburg and Moscow as well as from smaller towns. Ballet music composers, opera composers, and even jazz musicians all made their mark in Russia's history.

Tchaikovsky, Rachmaninoff and Shostakovich are only some of the big names that every music lover will recognize, but there are many more that have their roots in Russia. The following article briefly explains classical music's place in Russian history, its evolution, and current position. See also our short biographies of famous Russian composers, and our suggestions about where to go and what to see to get a decent picture of classical music in Russia. The Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries Russia consists of dozens of different ethnic groups, each of which have their own forms of traditions and folk music. During the Soviet era, music was highly scrutinized and kept within certain boundaries of content and innovation. After the fall of the USSR, Western style rock and pop music became the most popular forms in Russia, perhaps because they symbolized democracy, freedom, and a cultural divide from the repressive Communistic rule. But before the Soviet era, Russian composers and musicians were innovative and influential. Until the 18th century, Russian music consisted mainly of church music, folk songs and dances. In the 1700s, Italian, French, and German operas were introduced to Russia, making opera a popular art form among the bourgeoisie.

In the 19th century, Russia began making an original contribution to world music nearly as significant as its contribution in literature. In the first half of the century, Mikhail Glinka (1804-57) initiated the application of purely Russian folk and religious music to classical compositions. His operas Ruslan and Lyudmila and A Life for the Tsar, are considered ground-breaking works in the establishment of Russian national music, although they are loosely based and modeled on Italian opera. In 1859 the Russian Music Society was founded to foster musical performances and appreciation for classical music from Western Europe. The most influential figures in the society were the composer Anton Rubinstein and his brother Nikolay, who founded influential conservatories in Moscow and St. Petersburg (Anton Rubinstein also was one of the best pianists of the 19th century).

In the second half of the 19th century, a group of composers that came to be known as the "Mighty Handful" or the "Mighty Handful" пїЅ Miliy Balakirev, Aleksandr Borodin, Cesar Cui, Modest Mussorgsky, and Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov пїЅ continued Glinka's movement away from the imitation of European classical music by adding in elements of Russian folk music and tales. Although most of them wrote Western-influenced music, this group challenged the Russian Music Society's conservatism with a large body of work thematically based on Russia's history and legends and musically based on its folk and religious music; not surprisingly, the two groups were more or less rivals. Among the Mighty HandfulпїЅs most notable works are Rimsky-Korsakov's symphonic suite Scheherazade and the operas The Snow Maiden and Sadko, Mussorgsky's operas Boris Godunov and Khovanshchina, and Borodin's opera Prince Igor. Balakirev, a protégé of Glinka, was the founder and leader of this group.

Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky stood outside this group. While he didnпїЅt take sides in the above-described ideological battle (he was too busy writing music), his music did to a large extent resemble Western European music. He produced a number of enduring symphonies, operas, and ballets, and even during his lifetime he was considered one of the world's premier composers. The generation that followed the Mighty Handful and Tchaikovsky in the late nineteenth century included talented and innovative figures such as Sergey Rachmaninoff, a genius pianist and composer, who immigrated to Germany in 1906, Rimsky-Korsakov's student Aleksandr Glazunov, who emigrated from Russia in 1928 and Aleksandr Skryabin, who injected elements of mysticism and literary symbolism in his piano and orchestral works. Prominent Russian (and, due to the time in which they composed, Soviet) composers of the 20th century include Stravinsky, Prokofiev, and Shostakovich. Traditional music didnпїЅt die out among all this internationalism.

In the late ninteenth century, Count Uvavrov led a campaign of nationalist revival which spawned the first professional orchestras with traditional instruments, beginning with Vassily Andreyev, who used the balalaika in an orchestra late in the century. Just after the dawn of the 20th century, Mitrofan Pyatnitsky founded the Pyatnitsky Choir of rural peasant singers. Back to top ► The Soviet Era In the 1910s romances in exotic Russian, Caucasian, Gypsy and Italian styles became popular in Russia. The greatest and most popular singers of romances пїЅ chief among them Fyodor Shalyapin пїЅ usually sang in operas at the same time they were pursuing this newer genre of popular music. Singers, for example Alexandr Vertinsky, Konstantin Sokolsky and Pyotr Leshchenko, usually composed music and wrote lyrics themselves, However, experimentation did not prosper much with the onset of Soviet rule and oppression. In the 20th century, Russia continued to produce some of the world's foremost composers and musicians, despite the suppression by Soviet authorities of music and other artistic thought, ideas, and performances.

Restrictions on what musicians played and where they performed caused many artists to leave the Soviet Union either voluntarily or through forced exile, but the works of the emigrants continued to draw large audiences whenever they were performed. In the 1960s, Vyacheslav Shchurov organized concerts featuring folk singers from all over Russia. Shchurov thus attracted a wave of ethnomusicologists, who recorded rural folk musicians. Perhaps the most important group to follow in Shchurov's wake was the Dmitri Pokrovsky Ensemble. Moreover, a group of musicians called bards arose at the same time. They were generally ignored by the state, but bards like Vladimir Vysotsky's helped lead a popular return to traditional music. The same period spawned the birth of Russian rock, which all began with the band Pojuschie Gitary. They created a style called VIA and later released the first Russian rock opera, Orpheus and Eurydice. Other rock bands of the era included Tcvety, Sinyaya Ptica and Golubiye Gitary. By the 1980s, popular folk-oriented groups had arisen.

The Cossack Kazachy Krug and Pesen Zemli became the most popular. A musical underground (magnitizdat) also arose, where poetic and satirical musicians like Bulat Okudzhava and Vladimir Vysotskiy gained black market fame playing jazz and rock music. They also set their poetry to music and became popular entertainers with a satirical message. Magnitizidat also recorded and distributed forbidden folk, rock, and jazz works in small batches. Jazz performances were permitted by all Soviet regimes, and jazz became one of Russia's most popular music forms. In the 1980s, the Ganelin Trio was the best known Russian jazz combo, performing in Europe and the United States. Jazz musicians from the West began playing regularly in the Soviet Union in the 1980s. Rock music on the other hand was strictly controlled by Soviet Authorities, and recordings were strictly limited. Nonetheless, Russia's youth was fascinated with the rock music of the West. Later in the 80s, when the Communist regime began to weaken, there was more of a liberal atmosphere concerning music in Russia.

Several notable Soviet rock groups emerged which were considered innovative, and such groups proliferated throughout the 80s. The Leningrad Rock Club, one of a national network of performance clubs in 1986, was the most important outlet for sanctioned rock music. Post-Soviet Era After Communism fell and democracy was restored in the former Soviet Union, the Gorbachev era loosened many of the restrictions placed on creative thought and the arts, and many artists returned back to their homeland to continue producing and performing their music. The pianist Vladimir Horowitz, who left the Soviet Union in 1925, made a successful return performance in Moscow in 1986, and cellist Mstislav Rostropovich returned to Russia as a conductor on tour with the National Symphony Orchestra of Washington D.C. Rock music, however, seemed to have lost that innovative, satirical, and unique edge of the magnitizdat period, and experts have noted the tendency of rock groups to simply imitate Western groups in style. Want to learn more? See our biographies of Russian classical composers, lists of classical and jazz venues in St.

Petersburg and Moscow, our detailed analysis of Russian rock and undergound music, and description of the main movements in modern Russian music. Also look out for additions to this section of guidetorussia.org. The Mighty Five - Russian Nationalist Composers Russian Nationalist Composers Music Education Expert By Espie Estrella Also known as "The Mighty Five," "The Five," "The Russian Five" or “The Mighty Little Heap;" it refers to a group of Russian composers of the 19th century who wanted to establish a nationalist school of music. The group was formed in the 1860s and the nickname Moguchaya Kuchka (Russian for "The Mighty Little Heap") came from critic Vladimir Stasov. Here are the members of "The Mighty Handful." Mily Balakirev. Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons 1. Mily Balakirev Mily Alekseyevich Balakirev was the leader of the group and composed, among others, songs, symphonic poems, piano pieces and orchestral music. It has been mentioned that Balakirev had a reputation of being a tyrant which earned him many enemies during his lifetime.

More » continue reading below our video 10 Facts About the Titanic That You Don't Know Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov. Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons 2. Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov Nikolay Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov is probably the most prolific composer among them. He wrote operas , symphonies , orchestral works and songs. He also became conductor of military bands, director of St. Petersburg's Free Music School from 1874 to 1881 and conducted various concerts in Russia. More » Modest Mussorgsky. Public Domain Portrait from Wikimedia Commons 3. Modest Mussorgsky Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky was a Russian composer who served in the military. Although his father wanted him to pursue a military career, it was evident that Mussorgsky's passion was in music. He wrote operas, songs, piano pieces and melodies. He is especially known for his vivid portrayal of Russian life through his works. More » Aleksandr Borodin. Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons Aleksandr Porfiryevich Borodin wrote songs, string quartets and symphonies.

His most famous work is the opera "Prince Igor" which was left unfinished when he died in 1887. The said opera was completed by Aleksandr Glazunov and Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov. More » Cesar Cui. Public domain image from Wikimedia Commons

Question: What was the first name of the 19th century Russian composer Mussorgsky?
Answer: Modest