Boris Godunov review – Bryn Terfel is superb as tsar in torment | Music | The Guardian Boris Godunov review – Bryn Terfel is superb as tsar in torment 4 / 5 stars Royal Opera House, London Terfel makes the title role of Mussorgsky’s flawed masterpiece his own in a powerful new staging of the rarely seen original version A tsar is born… Bryn Terfel as Boris Godunov at the Royal Opera House. Photograph: Tristram Kenton Share on Messenger Close The famous portrait of Mussorgsky by the Russian painter Ilya Repin, currently on show at the National Portrait Gallery , tells you all. Bloodshot eyes, matted hair and beard, skin puffy and sallow, eyes distant yet wild: within days, Mussorgsky (1839-81) would be dead of drink, aged 42. He received no proper training in composition. Nor did he ever earn his living from music. Born into Russian nobility, he went into the army then spent his increasingly dissolute life as a government clerk, suffering alcohol-induced epilepsy, bouts of madness and destitution.

The rumour that his grave is now under a bus stop is hard to verify but completes the sad picture. Yet he had friends and admirers, most of them fellow composers. Many went to extreme lengths to support him. Rimsky-Korsakov – that great enabler and wizard of orchestration – and much later Shostakovich each had two attempts at making Mussorgsky’s only completed opera, Boris Godunov, “better”. He was working for the forestry department when he wrote this awkward, misshapen masterpiece based on Pushkin. It was rejected by St Petersburg’s Mariinsky theatre in part for its lack of a leading female role. The usual Boris we hear – to give a Snapchat version of the work’s protracted history – is the epic, expanded 1874 score. In a compelling new staging by Richard Jones , conducted by Antonio Pappano , the Royal Opera has dared – for the first time – to go back to the 1869 original, in all its rawness.

Mussorgsky may have used rough tools when it came to orchestration, but he knew what he wanted from his voices Mussorgsky’s orchestration, at once shining and murky, creates great blocks of chords, moving with unadorned, almost clumsy simplicity (exactly the characteristic of this composer which Rimsky was keen to polish and refine). You can see why he was misunderstood, music’s equivalent, perhaps, of his younger contemporary, Van Gogh in Starry Night mood. If you wondered what violas sound like, after hearing this score you need never do so again. They dominate the string writing, mellow and resonant, warmly played in an evening of excellence all round from the ROH orchestra. Pappano wrung every ounce of variety from the music, and entirely justified the use of the original, which ends so abruptly, without redemption, with Boris’s death. The bass-baritone Bryn Terfel sings the title role for the first time. Whereas the later version places the emphasis equally on the suffering of the Russian people, here the action is truncated, bald, almost static. The tsar’s torment drives the piece. Terfel must carry the drama, which he does, superbly.

Once anointed tsar, with a triumphant chorus and clamour of bells, Boris does little except brood and stare at a king-sized map of sprawling, unruly Russia. He is a good and honourable leader but is stained by his part in the murder of the young tsarevich Dmitry, which enabled him to take the crown. The dilemma of power and the dark path that led to it haunt him. Pinterest Plague and famine appear to prove Boris’s guilt, and leave the people – here an enlarged and excellent chorus of peasants in all versions of subfusc – starving and rebellious. Mussorgsky may have used rough tools when it came to orchestration, but he knew what he wanted from his voices, giving detailed indications on phrasing and dynamics. In his vital “hallucination” scene, as Boris grows deranged, Terfel sings with a ghostly lightness, as if his great, golden voice had been reduced to a sickly pallor. The effect is terrible and terrific. In Terfel we have a powerful new Boris, sure to turn out more reliable and enduring than the historic character he portrays.

He was joined by a top ensemble cast, with John Tomlinson , once himself the ROH Boris of choice, a popular presence as the drunken monk Varlaam, John Graham-Hall insinuating and snakish as Shuisky, Ain Anger a towering Pimen and Ben Knight clear and touching as the young Fyodor. Two ex-Jette Parker young artists, Kostas Smoriginas and David Butt Philip , deserve praise. Pinterest Peter Maxwell Davies, left, with Harrison Birtwistle in 2004. Photograph: Eamonn McCabe Many generous tributes have been paid to the composer Peter Maxwell Davies , who died last Monday, aged 81. Max has been part of our musical landscape since the late 1960s, first in the Pierrot Players, which became the Fires of London, eventually and unpredictably becoming master of the Queen’s music. His friendship with Harrison Birtwistle , from their Manchester student years in the 50s, helped shape the identity of both young Lancastrians. Later they drifted apart.

Last week, I spoke to Birtwistle, who remembered Max warmly, recalling how much he learned from him in those early days, and speaking of their many shared interests, including medieval music, misericords and an abiding, salty sense of humour. Birtwistle said of his death: “The bugger beat me to it.” Max would have chuckled wickedly. Boris Godunov - Laemmle.com Boris Godunov [The Royal Opera House: Boris Godunov] Part of our Culture Vulture series. For more screenings and information, visit: . Richard Jones and Antonio Pappano renew their creative collaboration with this new production of Musorgsky’s historical masterpiece, here seen in its compact 1869 first version in seven scenes. The originality of the composer’s vision of Pushkin’s play about Tsar Boris Godunov – who reigned over Russia between 1598 and 1605 – was too much for the management of the Imperial Theatres, who demanded changes that were incorporated in the second version of the opera, in which Boris finally had its premiere in 1874.

Many commentators, nevertheless, prefer the integrity of the original, which makes few concessions to operatic conventions. Keenly awaited will be Bryn Terfel’s assumption of the title role – one of the most complex characters in opera – while John Graham-Hall appears as the crafty Prince Shuisky and John Tomlinson as the vagabond monk Varlaam. Credits: Lighting designer ~ Mimi Jordan Sherin Movement director ~ Ben WrightConductor ~ Antonio Pappano Orchestra Orchestra of the Royal Opera House The Story Begins… Following the death of the Tsarevich Dmitry, Boris Godunov is persuaded to become Tsar of Russia. However, Boris seems plagued by mysterious guilt. A greedy aristocrat and a restless young monk each plot to turn Boris’s fears to their advantage. A Historical Drama Musorgsky based Boris Godunov on the play of the same name by Alexander Pushkin, published in 1831 but the censorial ban on which was only lifted in 1866. Pushkin’s play was loosely inspired by the true story of Boris Godunov, Tsar of Russia from 1598 to 1605.

Several of Pushkin’s other characters – such as Grigory Otrepiev and Vasily Shuisky – were also based on historical figures. Musorgsky wrote his own libretto, compressing Pushkin’s 25 scenes into seven scenes or — in the revised version — four acts and a prologue, and using Nikolay Karamzin’s History of the Russian State to help him portray Russian life of the period. A Tale of Several Versions Musorgsky completed his first version of Boris Godunov in 1869. It was rejected by the Imperial Theatre in St. Petersburg for having too many choruses, insufficient arias and ‘big tunes’ and no love interest. Musorgsky expanded the opera (including a whole new act) and his second version had a successful premiere in 1874. Due to tragic personal circumstances, it was to be the only opera the composer would complete. Revised editions of Boris Godunov were made after Musorgsky’s death by Rimsky-Korsakov and later by Shostakovich. Most productions now combine elements from both of Musorgsky’s versions of the opera.

This production is the first given by The Royal Opera of Musorgsky’s original version. Musical Invention Boris Godunov's score is rich in musical invention, including ingenious use of a motif representing Boris’s guilt, folklike songs for the rogue monk Varlaam and the Holy Fool, and imaginative use of arioso (half aria, half accompanied recitative) for Boris’s soliloquies. There are also fine choruses, particularly in the opening scene. The 1869 version is rare in 19th-century opera in having few formal arias and no principal female roles. Soul-Searching Scenes and Grand Tableaux Throughout Boris Godunov, grand crowd scenes contrast with intimate depictions of the Tsar and his inner circle. Particular highlights include the Coronation Scene (Scene 2), Boris’s touching scene with his son and daughter in Scene 5, the dramatic encounter outside St Basil’s Cathedral in Scene 6 and — greatest of all — Boris’s farewell to his son in the final scene.

Played at 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 Boris Godunov (opera) Facts for Kids | KidzSearch.com 9 Other pages What the opera is about The story of the opera is based on something that really happened in Russian history. The Russian people were ruled by a tsar (an emperor). The previous tsar Tsar Ivan IV was known as “Ivan the Terrible”. He was terribly cruel and the Russian people suffered badly under his rule. They were hungry, they were tortured and killed. When he died his son became Tsar, but he was mentally retarded (he had “learning difficulties”) so a group of powerful people including Boris Godunov had to rule for him. Ivan also had another son, but he disappeared. He was almost certainly murdered, and Boris Godunov, who wanted to become tsar himself, had probably ordered him to be murdered (for the sake of the opera, Mussorgsky assumes that he was indeed guilty of his murder). Then he persuaded the Russian people that they should choose him to be their tsar. Some years later a young monk escapes from his monastery and pretends to be the murdered son of Ivan the Terrible. He gets a Polish army to help him to fight Boris Godunov.

Boris Godunov feels terrible guilty about the murder. He suffers so much that he dies. The young monk arrives in Moscow and makes himself tsar (Tsar Dimitri II). The ordinary Russian people remain desperately poor. It is their fate to suffer, ruled by cruel tyrants. How the opera was composed The composer wrote the words (the libretto ) himself. It was based on a play by Aleksandr Pushkin . Mussorgsky also read a famous book on the history of Russia: Nikolay Karamzin 's History of the Russian State and used some of the historical material from this book. Originally Mussorgsky composed the opera in 1869, but in those days it had to be approved by the censors before it was allowed to be performed. The opera was rejected by the censors. The main reason they gave was that there were no female characters in the opera. Mussorgsky made lots of changes, including adding a whole new act with Dimitry in love with a Polish princess. Another reason why the opera had been rejected was that composers and dramatists were not allowed to have the character of a tsar on stage.

However, Tsar who then ruled said he did not mind, so the opera was first performed in 1874 in Saint Petersburg . The opera Boris Godunov can either be performed in the first version of 1869 , or in the second version of 1874 . In actual fact performances of the opera have often been something of a mixture, as opera directors have often made cuts, or changes to the music or the order of scenes. The composers Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Dmitri Shostakovich have both made new editions of the opera in which they thought they could improve some of Mussorgsky’s harmony or orchestration . For many years it was these editions that were usually performed. Nowadays people realize more and more that Mussorgsky’s harmonies and orchestrations, which were very original for their time, were quite deliberate and very effective. Modern performances therefore often go back to what Mussorgsky originally wrote. By the close of 1868, Mussorgsky had already started two operas, but never finished them These were Salammbô and Marriage , which was influenced by Alexander Dargomyzhsky 's opera The Stone Guest .

Mussorgsky was breaking away from the Romantic style that many composers used at the time. He had learned a lot by trying to write these operas and he used some of the musical ideas in Boris Godunov. Shalyapin as Boris (1913) Vladimir Nikolsky, a professor of Russian history, suggested to Mussorgsky the idea of writing an opera about Boris Godunov, based on Pushkin’s play. Mussorgsky worked very fast on the opera, finishing the vocal score (i.e. without the orchestration) in 9 months. During this time he was also working as a civil servant. When he state censor rejected the opera he worked another two years on it, adding a female role as required, and making other changes he felt necessary: adding three scenes, cutting one and changing another, adding songs for the Hostess, Fyodor and the Nurse. In 1873 three scenes were performed, and on 27 January 1874 the first performance of the whole opera took place. The conductor, Nápravník, was a good conductor, but he often made cuts in the operas he performed.

He cut the whole of the Cell Scene because he thought the opera was too long. Nevertheless, it was a great success among many people, although some critics hated it. It was performed 21 times in Mussorgsky’s lifetime. Famous interpreters of the main role During the early 20th century the Russian bass singer Fyodor Shalyapin was a very singer who often sang the role of Boris. Roles bass Sobolev Chorus, silent roles: Boyars, the Boyars' children, streltsï , bodyguards, policemen, Polish nobles, Sandomierz maidens, wandering minstrels, people of Moscow The story of the opera The opera is divided into a prologue and 4 acts. Setting Place: Moscow ; the Lithuanian frontier; a castle in Sandomierz ; Kromï Prologue Shishkov's design for the Novodevichiy Monastery Scene (1870) In the first scene of the prologue a large crowd has come to the courtyard of a monastery. Chelkalov comes and talks to the crowd. He tells them that Boris has not yet accepted the throne, but that they should pray that he will.

The second scene is the famous coronation scene. The crowd are kneeling in front of two cathedrals in the centre of Moscow. The church bells are ringing. The boyars cross the stage. Boris has agreed to be Tsar. Boris appears on stage, but he is rather gloomy. He tells the crowd to pray for guidance. Act I Scene i. This takes place five years later in a monastery . An old monk , Pimen is writing the history of Russia. He has nearly finished, and he has got to the year when the Tsar’s son seems to have been murdered. He is reading what he has written to a young monk, Grigory. Grigory then has a dream. In the dream he is standing on top of a high tower and looks down on the people who are laughing at him. He feels guilty and falls from the tower. Pimen tries to comfort him. He says that Boris murdered the Tsar’s son. Grigory learns that the Tsar’s son, if he had still been alive, would have been the same age as he is now. He decides to pretend to be the Tsar’s son and to claim the throne as his.

Scene ii takes place in an inn on the border of Russia with Lithuania . The hostess sings a silly song. Two monks, Varlaam and Missail, come in. Grigory is with them. He has run away from the monastery. The two wandering monks were showing him the way to the Lithuanian border. The two monks start to get drunk and sing. Grigory does not join in, his just sits there. Two guards (like policeman) appear. They are looking for Grigory because they know that the runaway monk is a going to be a threat to the Tsar. They have a description of the wanted man. They ask whether anyone can read (hardly anyone could read in those days, except monks). Dimitri says he can read, so he takes the piece of paper and starts to read the description of the wanted man. He is describing Varlaam. Varlaam realizes this and snatches the paper from him. He decides he can read after all. He starts to read a description of Dimitri. Dimitri escapes through the window. Act II The scene is the Tsar’s apartments in the Kremlin in Moscow.

The Tsarevich Fyodor is reading, his sister sings sadly a song about a man she loved who died before they could get married. The Nurse tries to comfort her. Fyodor tries to cheer her up by singing a jolly clapping song. The Nurse joins in. Then Boris comes in. He tells him to concentrate on his lesson. One day he will rule the country and he will need to be wise. Boris sings of his terrible feelings of doubt and agony (because he is guilty of murder). A boyar enters and tells Boris that Shuisky wants to speak to him. He warns Boris that Shuisky is on the side of the Poles who are against him. When Shuisky enters he tells Boris that a pretender has come who claims to be the Tsar’s son who is thought to have been murdered. Boris asks Shuisky whether it really was the Tsar’s son who was killed and buried. Shuisky says that it definitely was, and that he had watched over the body for five days. Boris cannot bear to hear any more and tells Shuisky to leave. He then sinks back in a chair. A clock chimes and the figures on the clock move.

Boris thinks they are a ghost of the murdered child. He goes mad. Act III The scene takes place in the royal palace in Poland . Dimitri has gone to Poland to persuade the Polish army to support him in his fight against Boris. The Poles are glad to do this because they often fought Russia when they thought they could take a bit of their land. They want the Polish Princess Marina to marry Dimitri (they think, of course, that he really is the Tsar’s son Dimitri, they don’t know that he is really a young monk called Grigory). Princess Marina sings of her love for Dimitri. She has not met him yet, but she would like to be Tsarina (the wife of the Tsar) because that would bring her power. Rangoni tells Dimitri that the Princess is in love with him. A meeting is arranged in the garden. Princess Marina is horrible to him. She persuades him to act quickly to get an army together to march to Moscow and get the throne. They embrace. Rangoni is pleased, because it will be a triumph for his church. Act IV Scene i takes place in the palace in the Kremlin.

Shuisky tells the assembled noblemen that he saw Boris who seemed to be having a mad fit. He was shouting “Away! Away!” and waving his arms. Just at that moment Boris enters doing just that. He does not seem to notice any of the boyars who are standing there. Shuisky manages to persuade him to sit down on his throne. Shuisky then says that there is a holy man outside who has something to say to everyone. The man is let in. It is Pimen. He tells a strange story. It is about a shepherd who was blind. He had a dream in which he was told to go to the tomb where the murdered Tsar’s son Dimitri lies buried. He went there and prayed. Immediately he was able to see. Boris becomes terribly distressed at this story. He calls for light, he collapses in the arms of the boyars, and he sends for his son Fyodor. Boris asks to be left alone with him. He then says goodbye to his son and tells him to take good care of the Russian people. Monks behind the scene pray for the soul of Boris. Boris dies. Scene ii takes place in the forest of Kromy.

Dimitri has marched into Russia leading his troops. The Russian people are starving and law and order has broken down. A very simple man (the Simpleton ) sings a simple song. A group of children tease him and steal his money (just one kopek ). Varlaam and Missail sing in praise of Dimitri. They point out two men who are Jesuits , and the people get ready to hang them. Dimitri enters and frees the Jesuits. The people rejoice because Dimitri is to be their new tsar. He tells the people to follow him to Moscow. All exit and the Simpleton is left alone on stage. He sings a simple song which expresses the sadness of the poor, hungry Russian people. Order of the scenes in the last act There has been a lot of discussion about the order of the two scenes in Act IV: scene i which shows the death of Boris and scene ii which shows the Russian people in the forest. The order given above is what Mussorgsky wanted. For him, the most important thing about the opera was to express the tragedy of the Russian people who are always doomed to be ruled by cruel tyrants.

When Rimsky-Korsakov edited the opera after Mussorgsky’s death he put Boris’s death scene last. Finishing the opera with Boris’s death meant that the personal tragedy of Boris was the most important thing. Certainly, famous singers who sang the role of Boris, such as Chaliapin, liked the opera to finish with Boris’s death. Nowadays the opera is nearly always performed with the forest scene finishing the opera. This was Mussorgsky’s intention. It is about the tragedy of the people, and this is put into words by the Simpleton, who expresses the truth through his simple words. Shishkov's design for the Faceted Palace Scene (1870) References ↑ Calvocoressi, Abraham (1974: pp. 98, 138) ↑ Brown (1986: p 31) 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 Modest Mussorgsky Facts for Kids | KidzSearch.com Ivan Melnikov as the title character in Boris Godunov, 1874 Fyodor Komissarzhevsky as The Pretender in Boris Godunov Modest Petrovitch Mussorgsky (born Karevo, Pskov district, 21 March 1839; died St Petersburg , 28 March 1881) was a Russian composer . Mussorgsky is famous for his operas and songs . He discovered new ways of writing for the voice which were very tuneful but which also suited the Russian language . His most famous opera is Boris Godunov . He wrote an overture called Night on a Bare Mountain. Another very famous piece is called Pictures at an Exhibition. He wrote it for the piano , but many years after his death another composer called Maurice Ravel orchestrated it and this is the version people usually hear today. Some of his works were re-orchestrated and "improved" by the composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov .

In recent years people have started to think that what Mussorgsky wrote originally was better. Contents Life Early years Mussorgsky was born in Toropets, 250 miles south of Saint Petersburg . His family were very rich and owned a lot of land and servants (known as “ serfs ” in Russia). He probably got to know the serfs well. Later, in his operas, we can see that he had a lot of sympathy for the ordinary, poor people. [1] When Mussorgsky was six he started to have piano lessons from his mother. He learned very quickly, and when he was nine he performed a concerto by John Field and works by Franz Liszt for the family. When he was 10 he and his brother went to a private school: St Peter’s School. When he was 12 he composed a polka . His father paid for it to be published. When he was 13 he was sent to the Cadet School of the Guards. His parents wanted him to be in military service, like his ancestors had been. It was a hard life at the school. There was a lot of bullying .

He learned to drink alcohol and this eventually led to his alcoholism which was to kill him. He played the piano for the cadets to dance to. He was interested in history and German philosophy . Adulthood In October 1856, when he was 17 years old, he met the 22-year-old Alexander Borodin . They were both working in a military hospital in Saint Petersburg. The two men were soon good friends. [1] He also met Alexander Dargomyzhsky who was then the most important Russian composer after Mikhail Glinka . Dargomyzhsky liked Mussorgsky's piano playing, and Mussorgsky often went to musical parties at Dargomyzhsky’s home. Here he met many other important Russian musicians: the critic Vladimir Stasov and the composers César Cui and Mily Balakirev . He had a very special relationship with Balakirev who was like a teacher to him and gave him a lot of advice and encouragement, introducing him to a lot of music he did not yet know. In 1858 Mussorgsky decided to give up his job and spend all his time on music. 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. Fame 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. Decline Detail from Ilya Repin 's famous portrait of Mussorgsky, painted 2–5 March 1881, only a few days before the composer's death. 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. His music Grave of Modest Mussorgsky in the Tikhvin Cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Monastery in Saint Petersburg 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. References ↑ 1.0 1.1 Brown, David 2002. Mussorgsky: his life and works. Oxford University Press. {{Link FA

Question: Who wrote the opera 'Boris Godunov' in 1874?
Answer: (Modest) Mussorgsky