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 Modest Mussorgsky (Composer) - OperaAndBallet.com Hello. Returning customer? Sign in . New customer? Start here Modest Mussorgsky (Composer) His mother gave him piano lessons, and at nine he played a Field concerto before an audience in his parents� house. In 1852 he entered the Guards� cadet school in St Petersburg. Although he had not studied harmony or composition, in 1856 he tried to write an opera; the same year he entered the Guards. In 1857 he met Dargomizhsky and Cui, and through them Balakirev and Stasov. He persuaded Balakirev to give him lessons and composed songs and piano sonalas. In 1858 Mussorgsky passed through a nervous or spiritual crisis and resigned his army commission. A visit to Moscow in 1859 fired his patriotic imagination and his compositional energies, but although his music began to enjoy public performances his nervous irritability was not entirely calmed.

The emancipation of the serfs in March 1861 obliged him to spend most of the next two years helping manage the family estate; a symphony came to nothing and Stasov and Balakirev agreed that �Mussorgsky is almost an idiot�. But he contiuned to compose and in 1863-6 worked on the libretto and music of an opera, Salammbo, which he never completed. At this time he served at the Ministry of Communications and lived in a commune with five other young men who ardently cultivated and exchanged advanced ideas about art, religion, philosophy and politics. Mussorgsky�s private and public lives eventually came into conflict. In 1865 he underwent his first serious bout of dipsomania (probably as a reaction to his mother�s death that year) and in 1867 he was dismissed from his post. Mussorgsky spent summer 1867 at his brother�s country house at Minkino, where he wrote, among other things, his first important orchestral work, St. John�s Night on the Bare Mountain. On his return to St.

Petersburg in the autumn Mussorgsky, like the other members of the Balakirev-Stasov circle (ironically dubbed the �Mighty Handful�), became interested in Dargomizhsky�s experiments in operatic naturalism. Early in 1869 Mussorgsky re-entered government service and, in more settled conditions, was able to complete the original version of the opera Boris Godunov. This was rejected by the Mariinsky Theatre and Mussorgsky set about revising it. In 1872 the opera was again rejected, but excerpts were performed elsewhere and a vocal score published. The opera committee finally accepted the work and a successtul production was mounted in February 1874. Meanwhile Mussorgsky had begun work on another historical opera, Khovanshchina, at the same time gaining promotion at the ministry. Progress on the new opera was interrupted partly because of unsettled domestic circumstances, but mainly because heavy drinking left Mussorgsky incapable of sustained creative effort.

But several other compositions belong to this period, including the song cycles Sunless and Songs and Dances of Death and the Pictures at an Exhibition, for piano, a brilliant and bold series inspired by a memorial exhibition of drawings by his friend Victor Hartmann. Ideas for a comic opera based on Gogol�s Sorochintsy Fair also began to compete with work on Khovanshchina; both operas remained unfinished at Mussorgsky�s death. During the earlier part of 1878 he seems to have led a more respectable life and his director at the ministry even allowed him leave for a three-month concert tour with the contralto Darya Leonova. After he was obliged to leave the government service in January 1880, Leonova helped provide him with employment and a home. It was to her that he tumed on 23 February 1881 in a state of nervous excitement, saying that there was nothing left for him but to beg in the streets; he was suffering from alcoholic epilepsy. He was removed to hospital, where he died a month later.

Many of Mussorgsky�s works were unfinished, and their editing and posthumous publication were mainly carried out by Rimsky-Korsakov, who to a greater or lesser degree �corrected� what Mussorgsky had composed. Boris Godunov, in particular, was reshaped and repolished, with drastic cuts, wholesale rewriting and rescoring, insertion of new music and transposition of scenes. It was only many years later that, with a return to the composer�s original drafts, the true nature of his rough art could be properly understood, for Mussorgsky shared with some of the painters of his day a disdain for formal beauty, technical polish and other manifestations of �art for art�s sake�. His desire was to relate his art as closely as possible to life, especially that of the Russian masses, to nourish it on events and to employ it as a means for communicating human experience. Feedback If you need help or have a question for Customer Service, contact us . Our Help pages often contain the answers to your questions. If it don't answer your question, please fill in brief form below.

Name: The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra - Pictures at an Exhibition Songs and Dances of Death The Nursery by HIGHRESAUDIO - issuu Issuu on Google+ Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky (1839-1881) Pictures at an Exhibition • Songs and Dances of Death • The Nursery (orchestrated by Peter Breiner) Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky was born in 1839, the fourth son of a land-owner. As a young officer he had musical ambitions and, without any training in composition, tried his hand at an opera and less demanding compositions for the entertainment of his friends. It was a meeting with the nationalist composer César Cui, an expert in military fortification, and with the composer Dargomïzhsky, that led him to a more influential connection with Balakirev, self-appointed leader of the nationalists, and their polymath mentor, the immensely influential Vladimir Stasov, Mussorgsky’s first biographer.

It is of some interest to notice that Stasov at first found little good to say of Mussorgsky, whom he found lacking in ideas and a complete idiot, a judgement in which Balakirev concurred at the time and over the following years. Mussorgsky resigned his commission in the army in 1858. Following the emancipation of the serfs of 1861, which brought financial consequences for land-owners, Mussorgsky in 1863 took a position as a clerk in the Ministry of Communications, and continued intermittently in government employment. It was from this time onwards that he developed his own highly original musical ideas and language, and his deep interest in the people and history of Russia. In 1867 he left the civil service and attempted to earn a living from music, as a teacher and accompanist, but the following year he sought to solve his financial difficulties by taking a position in the government Forestry Department. Perhaps his greatest musical success came in 1874 with the performance of his historical opera Boris Godunov, a work to which critics, however, took general exception.

His bouts of drinking finally forced him to abandon government service in 1880, after attempts by friends to protect his position. Others now offered him support, hoping that he might complete his operas Sorochintsy Fair and Khovanshchina, two tasks that, in the circumstances, were beyond him. He died MUSSORGSKY ORCH. PETER BREINER: Pictures at an Exhibition Songs and Dances of Death The Nursery –2– in March the following year, his death the result of epilepsy, induced by alcoholism. He left much unfinished, to be revised and edited by his colleague Rimsky-Korsakov, from whom Balakirev had recently advised him to take lessons in harmony. RimskyKorsakov, who had acquired his musical skills largely as an adult, after earlier service as a naval officer, was to revise and finish some of the works that Mussorgsky had failed to complete, and to perform the same service for the nationalist composer Borodin, introducing an element of musical sophistication that has not always proved welcome, as the nature of Mussorgsky’s originality and genius has become more widely understood and appreciated.

Pictures at an Exhibition was written in 1874 as a set of piano pieces, a translation into music of paintings, designs, models and drawings by Mussorgsky’s friend Victor Hartmann, who had died the year before. These piano pieces have been orchestrated by various composers, with the version by Maurice Ravel probably the best known. Peter Breiner has here orchestrated the pieces for an orchestra of piccolo, three flutes, alto flute, four oboes, cor anglais, four clarinets, bass clarinet, four bassoons, contrabassoon, four horns, four trumpets, four trombones, tuba, timpani, and six percussion players, with bass drum, snare drum, cymbals, tam-tam, anvil, temple blocks, cabassa, tambourine, tubular bells, glockenspiel, xylophone, marimba, and vibraphone. The orchestra used also has piano, harp and celeste, with a string section of sixty players. The exhibits are linked by a Promenade, as the visitor to the exhibition goes from exhibit to exhibit. The titles of the works are largely self-explanatory.

Gnomus is a design for nutcrackers in the shape of a gnome; The Old Castle shows a troubadour singing outside the castle walls and the Tuileries depicts children at play and quarrelling, while nursemaids gossip, in the famous Paris gardens. Bydlo is a traditional Polish peasant ox-cart, with its creaking wooden wheels slowly turning; Ballet of the Chickens in their Shells shows designs for children’s costumes, as described in the title, and Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle, the names of those portrayed being apparently the invention of the composer, MUSSORGSKY ORCH. PETER BREINER: Pictures at an Exhibition Songs and Dances of Death The Nursery –3– is a picture of two Jews, one rich, one poor, a present by Hartmann to the composer. In Limoges market-place old women gossip, discussing the fate of an escaped cow, and more trivial nonsense, while the Roman Catacombs, subtitled Sepulchrum Romanum, are lit by a flickering lamp, the skulls piled on either side beginning to glow in the light from within. This is linked to the eerie With the Dead in the Language of the Dead.

The macabre continues with The Hut on Fowl’s Legs, a clock in the form of the hut of the witch Baba Yaga, who crunches up children’s bones and flies through the night on a pestle. The impressive conclusion offers a design for a triumphal gate in Kiev, to commemorate the escape of Tsar Alexander II from assassination in 1866. The music contrasts the massive structure with the sound of a solemn procession of chanting monks. Mussorgsky wrote songs throughout his life, the first at the age of nineteen and the last in 1879. Pesni i piyaski smerti (Songs and Dances of Death) date from 1875, with the fourth song written in 1877. Based on a suggestion from Stasov and with texts by Arseny Golenischchev-Kutuzov, the songs reflect encounters with death.

In the first, Kolïbel’naya (Lullaby), dedicated to the veteran singer Anna Vorobyeva-Petrova, Death lulls to final sleep a child, dying in his mother’s arms, and in the second, Serenada, dedicated to Glinka’s sister, Death serenades a dying girl, claiming her as his own. In Trepak, dedicated to the bass Osip Petrov, Death dances with a drunken peasant, lured to die in the ice and snow. The fourth song, Polkovodets (The Field Marshal), dedicated to Kutuzov, presents a scene of battle, after which Death surveys the field, having conquered all. Peter Breiner’s orchestral arrangement of the songs is scored for two flutes with piccolo, two oboes with cor anglais, two clarinets and a bass clarinet, two bassoons and a contrabassoon, four horns, three trumpets, four trombones, tuba, timpani, snare drum, cymbals, bass drum, triangle, tubular bells, glockenspiel, xylophone, harp, celesta, piano and a string section of fifty players.

For his orchestral arrangement of The Nursery Peter Breiner uses similar forces, with the MUSSORGSKY ORCH. PETER BREINER: Pictures at an Exhibition Songs and Dances of Death The Nursery –4– addition of tambourine, marimba and vibraphone to the percussion section. Mussorgsky was good with children and the songs that make up The Nursery reflect this ability to enter a child’s world on equal terms. The words, in prose, their rhythms and intonations reflected in the vocal line, are by the composer. The first song of the cycle, S nyaney (With Nurse), was written in 1868 and is dedicated to Dargomïzhsky, described as ‘the great teacher of musical truth’. A child begs his nurse to tell him stories of bogeymen, of a limping Tsar and a sneezing Tsaritsa; in the end, though, he would rather have a funny story. V uglu (In the Corner) has Nanny rebuking her charge for splashing ink over a sock and upsetting her knitting; the child rejects these accusations, claiming to have been good, while Nanny is being horrible.

The song, with the following three of the series, was written in 1870. It is dedicated to Victor Hartmann. Zhuk (The Beetle), dedicated to Vladimir Stasov, has the boy telling Nanny about a beetle that appeared while he was playing and flew into him, and now lies on its back hardly moving; he puzzles over what has happened to it. S kukloy (With the Doll), dedicated to his niece and nephew Tanyushka and Goga, children of his brother Filaret, has the child, presumably a litle girl, lulling a doll to sleep, with threats of bogeymen and speculation about the fine land of dreams. Na son gryadushchiy (Going to Sleep) is dedicated to his godson, César Cui’s child Sasha. The little girl says her prayers, listing all those to be remembered, corrected finally to include herself, a sinner, to Nanny’s final approval. MUSSORGSKY ORCH. PETER BREINER: Pictures at an Exhibition Songs and Dances of Death The Nursery The last two songs of the set were written in 1872 and originally intended to form part of another group, At the Dacha.

In Kot Matros (The Cat Sailor) the little girl searches for a sunshade and finally rescues their caged bullfinch from their cat, Sailor. Poyekal na palochke (On the Hobby Horse), originally described as ‘An Episode from a Child’s Life’, is dedicated to Vladimir Stasov’s brother Dimitri and his wife Polixena. The boy rides his wooden hobbyhorse, pretending to ride out for the day, urging his horse onward, only to hurt his foot and need his mother’s consolation. Keith Anderson –5– Note on the Orchestration: I was not trying to re-create Mussorgsky’s orchestral sound in this recording, but actually to create a contemporary sound. I wanted to create it without using a lot of unusual sounds and to stay within the limits of the traditional symphony orchestra with a substantial expansion in woodwind and percussion. I tried to create a contemporary sound with unusual combinations and settings. From the very beginning, the first Promenade combines alto flute, cor anglais and violins divisi in eight parts, with martellato violas.

In places the piccolo doubling another solo woodwind at the octave and a fifth above creates an organ-like mixture effect, with the bassoon in Il vecchio castello. The possibility of setting the harmonies within one group of woodwind, thanks to the employment of four instruments in each group, creates also a lot of unusual sounds. Some solo passages were assigned to instruments that would not be really expected in that rôle — a trumpet solo in Tuileries, and a combination of trombones, four flutes and vibraphone in Cum mortuis in lingua morta. MUSSORGSKY ORCH. PETER BREINER: Pictures at an Exhibition Songs and Dances of Death The Nursery There are a few things added to the score that were not in the piano version, such as horn glissandi in Gnomus and Bydlo, harp/ vibraphone figurations in Gnomus, piano/celesta figurations in Il vecchio castello, flute figures in Samuel Goldberg und Schmuyle and La cabane sur des pattes de poule. At the end a body of 104 musicians creates quite a spectacular Great Gate of Kiev.

The song cycles introduce a different problem — to replace the vocal line in a way to make it an organic part of the orchestration. Thanks to rather recitativo like vocal lines this was possible by dividing it almost always between several solo instruments. Wherever Mussorgsky has a nice long melody, however, I try to remain within a single colour to support it. There is a lovely violin solo in Serenade and cor anglais in Trepak. Peter Breiner –6– Peter Breiner CONDUCTOR • PIANIST ARRANGER • COMPOSER Peter Breiner is one of the world’s most recorded musicians, with over 180 CDs released and record numbers sold (1.5 million reached by 2008 alone), including both albums and online streams.

A conductor, pianist, arranger and composer he has conducted, often doubling as a pianist, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra, the Vienna Mozart Orchestra, the Hungarian State Radio Orchestra, the Nicolaus Esterházy Orchestra, Budapest, the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra, the Ukrainian State Symphony Orchestra, the Moscow Symphony Orchestra, the Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra, the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra, Capella Istropolitana, the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra National de Lille, France, and the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, among many others. Some of his most acclaimed recordings include Beatles Go Baroque [Naxos 8.555010] (over a quarter of a million CDs sold worldwide) and Elvis Goes Baroque [Naxos 8.990054] which, together with Christmas Goes Baroque I and II [Naxos 8.550301 and 8.550670], represents his commercially most successful Baroque arrangements. His arrangements of national anthems of all participating countries were used during the Olympic Games in Athens in MUSSORGSKY ORCH.

PETER BREINER: Pictures at an Exhibition Songs and Dances of Death The Nursery –7– 2004 and illegally in Beijing in 2008. He recorded his own arrangements of the anthems of the participating countries of the Rugby World Cup 2011, followed by a new ten CD set of the National Anthems of the World for Naxos to coincide with the 2012 Olympic Games in London. Most recently Peter Breiner has recorded two new albums for Naxos due for release in 2012 and 2013. They are his own arrangements of Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition, Songs and Dances of Death and The Nursery, featured on the present recording, and Tchaikovsky’s Operatic Suites from The Voyevoda and The Queen of Spades. These recordings with the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and conducted by him, are the subject of a new movie documentary entitled Bask due for release this October. Peter Breiner’s own arrangements of Debussy’s Piano Preludes have been released on Naxos 8.572584.

Currently under preparation is a huge Transmedia project consisting of audio recording, several interactive videos, and audience-involvement platforms. It is based on Peter Breiner’s own 85 minute orchestral piece Slovak Dances, Nasty and Nice, which will be recorded by a world renowned orchestra, and pull together all the latest trends in technology and communication across the world today. MUSSORGSKY ORCH. PETER BREINER: Pictures at an Exhibition Songs and Dances of Death The Nursery The world première recording for Naxos of Breiner’s own arrangements of Janácˇek’s Six Operatic Suites [Naxos 8.570555 and 56] with him conducting the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra earned tremendous acclaim, Gramophone declaring it a “splendid disc ... conducted with passion and sympathetic understanding.” The Chicago Tribune added, “Breiner fills the void with beautifully crafted symphonic suites based on the music of Jenu˚fa.” Peter Breiner’s compositions and arrangements have been played in concerts worldwide.

Films that include his musical scores have enjoyed very wide international exposure, including Anne of Green Gables, Timothy Findley’s Piano Man’s Daughter, produced –8– by Whoopi Goldberg, and The Magic Flute. His music has been featured many times on the most popular TV shows, including the CBC television show Wind at My Back and Seasons of Love. Future projects include a tour of An Evening of Michel Legrand across Germany and Europe combining Breiner’s own arrangements of the music of Legrand and of Debussy; Valentines’ Day programs in Hong Kong and the United States; further worldwide tours and concert programs of his acclaimed arrangements, collaborating with such esteemed artists and ensembles as Giora Feidmann, Gitanes Blondes, Takako Nishizaki and his trio Triango whose latest album was released in the fall of 2011. Peter Breiner began to study the piano in early childhood (1961) and his exceptional artistry led to his early acceptance at the Conservatory in Košice in 1971. He studied piano with L. Kojanova and composition with J. Podprocky, as well as conducting and percussion.

In 1975-1981 he studied composition at the Academy of Performing Arts in Bratislava with Prof. Alexander Moyzes, one of the most significant figures in modern Slovak music. Peter Breiner lived in Toronto, Canada, from 1992 to 2007, when he moved to New York. MUSSORGSKY ORCH. PETER BREINER: Pictures at an Exhibition Songs and Dances of Death The Nursery Proficient in seven languages, Breiner has hosted various TV and radio programs about music. In 1993 he was a co-host and music director of the most popular TV talk show in Slovakia, attracting over two million viewers in a country with a population of 5.5 million. He has his own column in one of Slovakia’s most influential weekly newspapers, while his first book Maple Leaves came out in April 1998 and immediately became a No. 1 non- fiction national bestseller. –9– The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra The New Zealand Symphony Orchestra is the country’s only professional full-size orchestra and one of the world’s oldest national symphony orchestras, in existence since 1946.

The orchestra is continually on the road, touring as many as a hundred symphonic concerts as well as dozens of dedicated concerts for children and small communities each year. While they present all their main programmes in Auckland and Wellington, they tour New Zealand extensively. In 2010, the NZSO completed the most prestigious and successful international tour in their history, appearing at Lucerne’s KKL, Geneva’s Victoria Hall, the Shanghai World Expo and Vienna’s Musikverein. Earlier tours have featured concerts at the BBC Proms, the Snape Maltings in England and the Aichi World Expo in Japan. Led by Music Director Pietari Inkinen, the NZSO has won consistent praise in the press for its performances, both in concerts and recordings. The NZSO has an extensive catalogue of recordings, mostly on the Naxos label. More than one million CDs have been sold internationally in the past decade. MUSSORGSKY ORCH. PETER BREINER: Pictures at an Exhibition Songs and Dances of Death The Nursery –10– THE 2xHD MASTERING PROCESS This album was mastered using our 2xHD proprietary system.

In order to achieve the most accurate reproduction of the original recording we tailor our process specifically for each project, using a selection from our pool of state-of-the-art audiophile components and connectors. The process begins with a transfer to analog from the original 24bits/96kHz, or 88.2 kHz resolution master, using cutting edge D/A converters. The analog signal is then sent through a hi-end tube pre-amplifier and (if needed) will be EQ’d before being recorded directly in DXD using the dCS905 A/D and the dCS Vivaldi Clock. All connections used in the process are made of OCC silver cable. DSD and 192kHz/24Bit versions are separately generated, directly from the analog signal. 2xHD was created by producer/studio owner André Perry and audiophile sound engineer René Laflamme. Feel the warmth MUSSORGSKY ORCH.

PETER BREINER: Pictures at an Exhibition Songs and Dances of Death The Nursery 2xHD Mastering: René Laflamme 2xHD Executive Producer: André Perry Modest Mussorgsky Modest Mussorgsky (1839-1881) (born Karevo, 21 March 1839; died St. Petersburg, 28 March 1881). His mother gave him piano lessons, and at nine he played a Field concerto before an audience in his parents' house. In 1852 he entered the Guards' cadet school in St Petersburg. Although he had not studied harmony or composition, in 1856 he tried to write an opera; the same year he entered the Guards. In 1857 he met Dargomïzhsky and Cui, and through them Balakirev and Stasov. He persuaded Balakirev to give him lessons and composed songs and piano sonatas . In 1858 Mussorgsky passed through a nervous or spiritual crisis and resigned his army commission.

A visit to Moscow in 1859 fired his patriotic imagination and his compositional energies, but although his music began to enjoy public performances his nervous irritability was not entirely calmed. The emancipation of the serfs in March 1861 obliged him to spend most of the next two years helping manage the family estate; a symphony came to nothing and Stasov and Balakirev agreed that 'Mussorgsky is almost an idiot'. But he contiuned to compose and in 1863-6 worked on the libretto and music of an opera , "Salammbô", which he never completed. At this time he served at the Ministry of Communications and lived in a commune with five other young men who ardently cultivated and exchanged advanced ideas about art, religion, philosophy and politics. Mussorgsky's private and public lives eventually came into conflict. In 1865 he underwent his first serious bout of dipsomania (probably as a reaction to his mother's death that year) and in 1867 he was dismissed from his post.

Mussorgsky spent summer 1867 at his brother's country house at Minkino, where he wrote, among other things, his first important orchestral work, "St. John's Night on the Bare Mountain". On his return to St. Petersburg in the autumn Mussorgsky, like the other members of the Balakirev-Stasov circle (ironically dubbed the 'Mighty Handful'), became interested in Dargomïzhsky's experiments in operatic naturalism. Early in 1869 Mussorgsky re-entered government service and, in more settled conditions, was able to complete the original version of the opera "Boris Godunov". This was rejected by the Mariinsky Theatre and Mussorgsky set about revising it. In 1872 the opera was again rejected, but excerpts were performed elsewhere and a vocal score published. The opera committee finally accepted the work and a successtul production was mounted in February 1874. Meanwhile Mussorgsky had begun work on another historical opera, "Khovanshchina", at the same time gaining promotion at the ministry.

Progress on the new opera was interrupted partly because of unsettled domestic circumstances, but mainly because heavy drinking left Mussorgsky incapable of sustained creative effort. But several other compositions belong to this period, including the song cycles "Sunless" and "Songs and Dances of Death" and the "Pictures at an Exhibition", for piano, a brilliant and bold series inspired by a memorial exhibition of drawings by his friend Victor Hartmann. Ideas for a comic opera based on Gogol's "Sorochintsy Fair" also began to compete with work on "Khovanshchina"; both operas remained unfinished at Mussorgsky's death. During the earlier part of 1878 he seems to have led a more respectable life and his director at the ministry even allowed him leave for a three-month concert tour with the contralto Darya Leonova. After he was obliged to leave the government service in January 1880, Leonova helped provide him with employment and a home. It was to her that he tumed on 23 February 1881 in a state of nervous excitement, saying that there was nothing left for him but to beg in the streets; he was suffering from alcoholic epilepsy.

He was removed to hospital, where he died a month later. Many of Mussorgsky's works were unfinished, and their editing and posthumous publication were mainly carried out by Rimsky-Korsakov , who to a greater or lesser degree 'corrected' what Mussorgsky had composed. "Boris Godunov", in particular, was reshaped and repolished, with drastic cuts, wholesale rewriting and rescoring, insertion of new music and transposition of scenes. It was only many years later that, with a return to the composer's original drafts, the true nature of his rough art could be properly understood, for Mussorgsky shared with some of the painters of his day a disdain for formal beauty, technical polish and other manifestations of 'art for art's sake'. His desire was to relate his art as closely as possible to life, especially that of the Russian masses, to nourish it on events and to employ it as a means for communicating human experience.

musicalion.com - Mussorgsky, Modest - Sheet music to download - 03/28/1881 Modest Mussorgsky (1839-1881), although he had not studied harmony or composition, tried to write an opera in 1856, the same year he entered the Guards. In 1857 he persuaded Balakirev to give him lessons and composed songs and piano sonatas. In 1858 he suffered a nervous or spiritual crisis and resigned his army commission. A visit to Moscow in 1859 fired his patriotic imagination and his compositional energies, but although his music began to enjoy public performances his nervous irritability was not entirely calmed. The emancipation of the serfs in March 1861 obliged him to spend most of the next two years helping manage the family estate; a symphony came to nothing and Stasov and Balakirev agreed that "Mussorgsky is almost an idiot". But he continued to compose, and in 1863-6 worked on the libretto and music of an opera, Salammbo, which he never completed.

At this time he served at the Ministry of Communications and lived in a commune with five other young men who ardently cultivated and exchanged advanced ideas about art, religion, philosophy and politics. Mussorgsky's private and public lives eventually came into conflict. In 1865 he underwent his first serious bout of dipsomania (probably as a reaction to his mother's death that year) and in 1867 he was dismissed from his post. Mussorgsky spent the summer of 1867 at his brother's country house at Minkino, where he wrote, among other things, his first important orchestral work, Night on Bald Mountain. On his return to St. Petersburg in the autumn, Mussorgsky, like the other members of the Balakirev-Stasov circle (ironically dubbed the 'Mighty Handful'), became interested in Dargomizhsky's experiments in operatic naturalism. Early in 1869 Mussorgsky reentered government service and, in more settled conditions, was able to complete the original version of the opera Boris Godunov. This was rejected by the Mariinsky Theatre and Mussorgsky set about revising it.

In 1872 the opera was again rejected, but excerpts were performed elsewhere and a vocal score published. The opera committee finally accepted the work and a successful production was mounted in February 1874. Meanwhile Mussorgsky had begun work on another historical opera, Khovanshchina, at the same time gaining promotion at the ministry. Progress on the new opera was interrupted partly because of unsettled domestic circumstances, but mainly because heavy drinking left Mussorgsky incapable of sustained creative effort. But several other compositions belong to this period, including the song cycles Sunless and Songs and Dances of Death and the Pictures at an Exhibition, for piano, a brilliant and bold series inspired by a memorial exhibition of drawings by his friend Victor Hartmann. Ideas for a comic opera based on Gogol's Sorochintsy Fair also began to compete with work on Khovanshchina; both operas remained unfinished at Mussorgsky's death. During the earlier part of 1878 he seems to have led a more respectable life and his director at the ministry even allowed him leave for a three-month concert tour with the contralto Darya Leonova.

After he was obliged to leave the government service in January 1880, Leonova helped provide him with employment and a home. It was to her that he turned on 23 February 1881 in a state of nervous excitement, saying that there was nothing left for him but to beg in the streets; he was suffering from alcoholic epilepsy. He was removed to hospital, where he died a month later. Many of Mussorgsky's works were unfinished, and their editing and posthumous publication were mainly carried out by Rimsky-Korsakov, who to a greater or lesser degree 'corrected' what Mussorgsky had composed. Boris Godunov, in particular, was reshaped and repolished, with drastic cuts, wholesale rewriting and rescoring, insertion of new music and transposition of scenes. ClassicalPlus Composer - Modest Mussorgsky Biography Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky (Born; Karevo, 21 March 1839; Died; St Petersburg, 28 March 1881). Russian composer. His mother gave him piano lessons, and at nine he played a Field concerto before an audience in his parents' house.

In 1852 he entered the Guards' cadet school in St Petersburg. Although he had not studied harmony or composition, in 1856 he tried to write an opera; the same year he entered the Guards. In 1857 he met Dargomï¿½zhsky and Cui, and through them Balakirev and Stasov. He persuaded Balakirev to give him lessons and composed songs and piano sonatas. In 1858 Mussorgsky passed through a nervous or spiritual crisis and resigned his army commission. A visit to Moscow in 1859 fired his patriotic imagination and his compositional energies, but although his music began to enjoy public performances his nervous irritability was not entirely calmed. The emancipation of the serfs in March 1861 obliged him to spend most of the next two years helping manage the family estate; a symphony came to nothing and Stasov and Balakirev agreed that 'Mussorgsky is almost an idiot'. But he continued to compose and in 1863-6 worked on the libretto and music of an opera, Salammbï¿½, which he never completed.

At this time he served at the Ministry of Communications and lived in a commune with five other young men who ardently cultivated and exchanged advanced ideas about art, religion, philosophy and politics. Mussorgsky's private and public lives eventually came into conflict. In 1865 he underwent his first serious bout of dipsomania (probably as a reaction to his mother's death that year) and in 1867 he was dismissed from his post. Mussorgsky spent summer 1867 at his brother's country house at Minkino, where he wrote, among other things, his first important orchestral work, St John's Night on the Bare Mountain. On his return to St Petersburg in the autumn Mussorgsky, like the other members of the Balakirev-Stasov circle (ironically dubbed the 'Mighty Handful'), became interested in Dargomï¿½zhsky's experiments in operatic naturalism. Early in 1869 Mussorgsky re-entered government service and, in more settled conditions, was able to complete the original version of the opera Boris Godunov. This was rejected by the Mariinsky Theatre and Mussorgsky set about revising it.

In 1872 the opera was again rejected, but excerpts were performed elsewhere and a vocal score published. The opera committee finally accepted the work and a successful production was mounted in February 1874. Meanwhile Mussorgsky had begun work on another historical opera, Khovanshchina, at the same time gaining promotion at the ministry. Progress on the new opera was interrupted partly because of unsettled domestic circumstances, but mainly because heavy drinking left Mussorgsky incapable of sustained creative effort. But several other compositions belong to this period, including the song cycles Sunless and Songs and Dances of Death and the Pictures at an Exhibition, for piano, a brilliant and bold series inspired by a memorial exhibition of drawings by his friend Victor Hartmann. Ideas for a comic opera based on Gogol's Sorochintsy Fair also began to compete with work on Khovanshchina ; both operas remained unfinished at Mussorgsky's death. During the earlier part of 1878 he seems to have led a more respectable life and his director at the ministry even allowed him leave for a three-month concert tour with the contralto Darya Leonova.

After he was obliged to leave the government service in January 1880, Leonova helped provide him with employment and a home. It was to her that he turned on 23 February 1881 in a state of nervous excitement, saying that there was nothing left for him but to beg in the streets; he was suffering from alcoholic epilepsy. He was removed to hospital, where he died a month later. Many of Mussorgsky's works were unfinished, and their editing and posthumous publication were mainly carried out by Rimsky-Korsakov, who to a greater or lesser degree 'corrected' what Mussorgsky had composed. Boris Godunov, in particular, was reshaped and repolished, with drastic cuts, wholesale rewriting and rescoring, insertion of new music and transposition of scenes. It was only many years later that, with a return to the composer's original drafts, the true nature of his rough art could be properly understood, for Mussorgsky shared with some of the painters of his day a disdain for formal beauty, technical polish and other manifestations of 'art for art's sake'.

His desire was to relate his art as closely as possible to life, especially that of the Russian masses, to nourish it on events and to employ it as a means for communicating human experience. Operas: Salammbo circ; (1863-6), inc.; Boris Godunov (1st version 1868-9; 2nd version 1871-3; staged 1874); Khovanshchina (1872-80), inc.; Sorochintsy Fair (1874-80), inc. Songs incl.cycles: The Nursery (1870), Sunless (1874), Songs and Dances of Death (1875-7). Other works: St John's Night on the Bare Mountain, orch (1867); Pictures at an Exhibition, pf (1874). ï¿½ Groves Dictionaries, MacMillan Publishers Limited, UK Modest Mussorgsky - Composer - MariinskyKirov.com Modest Mussorgsky Composer His mother gave him piano lessons, and at nine he played a Field concerto before an audience in his parents‘ house.

In 1852 he entered the Guards‘ cadet school in St Petersburg. Although he had not studied harmony or composition, in 1856 he tried to write an opera; the same year he entered the Guards. In 1857 he met Dargomizhsky and Cui, and through them Balakirev and Stasov. He persuaded Balakirev to give him lessons and composed songs and piano sonalas. In 1858 Mussorgsky passed through a nervous or spiritual crisis and resigned his army commission. A visit to Moscow in 1859 fired his patriotic imagination and his compositional energies, but although his music began to enjoy public performances his nervous irritability was not entirely calmed. The emancipation of the serfs in March 1861 obliged him to spend most of the next two years helping manage the family estate; a symphony came to nothing and Stasov and Balakirev agreed that ‘Mussorgsky is almost an idiot‘. But he contiuned to compose and in 1863-6 worked on the libretto and music of an opera, Salammbo, which he never completed.

At this time he served at the Ministry of Communications and lived in a commune with five other young men who ardently cultivated and exchanged advanced ideas about art, religion, philosophy and politics. Mussorgsky‘s private and public lives eventually came into conflict. In 1865 he underwent his first serious bout of dipsomania (probably as a reaction to his mother‘s death that year) and in 1867 he was dismissed from his post. Mussorgsky spent summer 1867 at his brother‘s country house at Minkino, where he wrote, among other things, his first important orchestral work, St. John‘s Night on the Bare Mountain. On his return to St. Petersburg in the autumn Mussorgsky, like the other members of the Balakirev-Stasov circle (ironically dubbed the ‘Mighty Handful‘), became interested in Dargomizhsky‘s experiments in operatic naturalism. Early in 1869 Mussorgsky re-entered government service and, in more settled conditions, was able to complete the original version of the opera Boris Godunov. This was rejected by the Mariinsky Theatre and Mussorgsky set about revising it.

In 1872 the opera was again rejected, but excerpts were performed elsewhere and a vocal score published. The opera committee finally accepted the work and a successtul production was mounted in February 1874. Meanwhile Mussorgsky had begun work on another historical opera, Khovanshchina, at the same time gaining promotion at the ministry. Progress on the new opera was interrupted partly because of unsettled domestic circumstances, but mainly because heavy drinking left Mussorgsky incapable of sustained creative effort. But several other compositions belong to this period, including the song cycles Sunless and Songs and Dances of Death and the Pictures at an Exhibition, for piano, a brilliant and bold series inspired by a memorial exhibition of drawings by his friend Victor Hartmann. Ideas for a comic opera based on Gogol‘s Sorochintsy Fair also began to compete with work on Khovanshchina; both operas remained unfinished at Mussorgsky‘s death. During the earlier part of 1878 he seems to have led a more respectable life and his director at the ministry even allowed him leave for a three-month concert tour with the contralto Darya Leonova.

After he was obliged to leave the government service in January 1880, Leonova helped provide him with employment and a home. It was to her that he tumed on 23 February 1881 in a state of nervous excitement, saying that there was nothing left for him but to beg in the streets; he was suffering from alcoholic epilepsy. He was removed to hospital, where he died a month later. Many of Mussorgsky‘s works were unfinished, and their editing and posthumous publication were mainly carried out by Rimsky-Korsakov, who to a greater or lesser degree ‘corrected‘ what Mussorgsky had composed. Boris Godunov, in particular, was reshaped and repolished, with drastic cuts, wholesale rewriting and rescoring, insertion of new music and transposition of scenes. It was only many years later that, with a return to the composer‘s original drafts, the true nature of his rough art could be properly understood, for Mussorgsky shared with some of the painters of his day a disdain for formal beauty, technical polish and other manifestations of ‘art for art‘s sake‘.

His desire was to relate his art as closely as possible to life, especially that of the Russian masses, to nourish it on events and to employ it as a means for communicating human experience. Mariinsky Theatre: Music History For Violin Students March 28 Modest Mussorgsky Biography 1842 - First official performance of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra . 1879 - Premiere of Bedrich Smetana's String Quartet in e From My Life. 1890 - Paul Whiteman , violist and jazz band leader, was born in Denver. 1915 - Jay Livingston, popular music composer, was born. He wrote Buttons & Bows, and Nat "King" Cole's hit Mona Lisa. ( Sample Cut 17 ) 1938 - Hal Kemp and his orchestra recorded Three Little Fishies . The Link has a Midi file and lyrics so you can sing along. 1940 - Premiere of Britten 's Violin Concerto, Op. 15. New York Philharmonic , with soloist Antonio Brosa. 1955 - Reba McEntire , country singer, was born.

1964 - Can't Buy Me Lov e , by the Beatles, was released. 1964 - Dead Man's Curve , (sample cut 5) by Jan & Dean, was released. 1972 - Premiere of Leonard Bernstein's Meditations Nos. 1 and 2 for Cello and Piano. Stephen Katz played cello and Bernstein played piano. 2003 - Julius Levine, American double bass player, died. Can You Guess? We read of Three Little Fishies below. There's another song about little animals with high hopes. Can You Guess what it is the ant and the ram in that song want to do? Go to the Bottom of the Column for the Answer What Else 1839-1881 Modest Mussorgsky died, March 28, 1881. Modest was born March 21, 1839 in Karevo, Russia. His mother gave him piano lessons. He played his first concert in his parents' house when he was 9. He received no formal music theory education as a child. In 1852 Mussorgsky entered the Cadet School of the Imperial Guard in St. Petersburg.

Despite his lack of training, Modest tried to write his first opera in 1856, the same year he entered the Guards. In 1857 he met Alexander Dargom�zhsky and Cesar Cui , and through them Mily Balakirev and librarian/critic Vladimir Stasov. He persuaded Balakirev to give him lessons and composed songs and piano sonatas. In 1858 Mussorgsky resigned his army commission. A visit to Moscow in 1859 inspired his patriotic imagination. His music began to receive public performances. In 1861 he had to return to his family estate to manage business there for the next two years. He composed a symphony, but the result was not well received. In fact, Stasov and Balakirev agreed that 'Mussorgsky is almost an idiot'. Did You Guess? The ant wants to move a rubber tree plant. The ram wants to butt a hole in a dam! Click here to go to a page with the song and lyrics so that you can sing along . He contiuned to compose. His opera, Salammb�, was never completed.

At this time he served at the Ministry of Communications and lived with five other young men who developed and exchanged ideas about art, religion, philosophy and politics. Mussorgsky spent summer 1867 at his brother's country house at Minkino, where he wrote St. John's Night on the Bare Mountain. On his return to St. Petersburg in the autumn Mussorgsky, like the other members of the Balakirev-Stasov circle (the 'Mighty Handful'), became interested in Dargom�zhsky's experiments in operatic naturalism. In 1869 he re-entered government service and was able to complete the original version of the opera Boris Godunov. It was rejected by the Mariinsky Theatre. Mussorgsky revised it, but the theatre rejected it again. In spite of this, excerpts were performed elsewhere and a vocal score was published. The opera committee finally accepted the work and a successtul production was mounted in February 1874. Mussorgsky began work on the opera, Khovanshchina. Progress on the opera was interrupted by unsettled domestic circumstances and his heavy drinking.

But he produced several other works at this time, including several song cycles and Pictures at an Exhibition, for piano. This was a brilliant and bold series inspired by a memorial exhibition of drawings by his friend Victor Hartmann. It would become his most famous work after being revised and orchestrated by Ravel after Mussorgsky's death. In 1878 Mussorgsky was granted leave for a three-month concert tour with the contralto Darya Leonova. In January, 1880 he had to leave government service. Leonova provided him with employment and a home. February, 1881, found Mussorgsky in a state of nervous excitement due to alcoholism. He said that there was nothing left for him but to beg in the streets. He was admitted to the hospital, where he died March 28. Many of Mussorgsky's works were unfinished. Rimsky-Korsakov edited them and "corrected" their rough edges. The opera Boris Gudonov is a good example of this. The orchestra was drastically cut, scenes were rearranged, and there were wholesale rewriting and rescoring edits.

But examination of the original scores reveals the genius of the composer despite the roughness of the compositions at the time of Mussorgsky's death. MUSSORGSKY: Pictures at an Exhibition Pictures at an Exhibition Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky was born in 1839, the fourth son of a land-owner. As a young officer he had musical ambitions and, without any training in composition, tried his hand at an opera and less demanding compositions for the entertainment of his friends. It was a meeting with the nationalist composer César Cui, an expert in military fortification, and with the composer Dargomïzhsky, that led him to a more influential connection with Balakirev, self-appointed leader of the nationalists, and their polymath mentor, the immensely influential Vladimir Stasov, Mussorgsky’s first biographer. It is of some interest to notice that Stasov at first found little good to say of Mussorgsky, whom he found lacking in ideas and a complete idiot, a judgement in which Balakirev concurred at the time and over the following years. Mussorgsky resigned his commission in the army in 1858.

Following the emancipation of the serfs of 1861, which brought financial consequences for land-owners, Mussorgsky in 1863 took a position as a clerk in the Ministry of Communications, and continued intermittently in government employment. It was from this time onwards that he developed his own highly original musical ideas and language, and his deep interest in the people and history of Russia. In 1867 he left the civil service and attempted to earn a living from music, as a teacher and accompanist, but the following year he sought to solve his financial difficulties by taking a position in the government Forestry Department. Perhaps his greatest musical success came in 1874 with the performance of his historical opera Boris Godunov, a work to which critics, however, took general exception. His bouts of drinking finally forced him to abandon government service in 1880, after attempts by friends to protect his position. Others now offered him support, hoping that he might complete his operas Sorochintsy Fair and Khovanshchina, two tasks that, in the circumstances, were beyond him. He died in March the following year, his death the result of epilepsy, induced by alcoholism.

He left much unfinished, to be revised and edited by his colleague Rimsky-Korsakov, from whom Balakirev had recently advised him to take lessons in harmony. Rimsky-Korsakov, who had acquired his musical skills largely as an adult, after earlier service as a naval officer, was to revise and complete some of the works that Mussorgsky had failed to complete, and to perform the same service for the nationalist composer Borodin, introducing an element of musical sophistication that has not always proved welcome, as the nature of Mussorgsky’s originality and genius has become more widely understood and appreciated. The origin of the orchestral piece Night on the Bare Mountain lies in music written for a play, The Witch, by a friend from Mussorgsky’s time in the army. The composer later had the idea of writing an opera on a story by Gogol, St John’s Eve, to take gradual form as Sorochintsy Fair, but left, at his death, in a very imperfect state.

In 1867, dismissed for the moment from the civil service, he found the time to write an orchestral work based on the material he had composed to depict a witches’ sabbath, held on the Eve of the Feast of St John, at midsummer, on Bare Mountain. Mussorgsky was to return to the music five years later for an abortive stage-work, Mlada, in which he collaborated with Rimsky-Korsakov, Borodin and Cui. As seems usual on these occasions, the witches’ celebration starts with relative decorum, before proceeding to more characteristic activities. Mussorgsky derives his inspiration throughout from Russian folk-song, an element never far from the musical language he employed. Rimsky-Korsakov later virtually recomposed the work, basing his version on the arrangement Mussorgsky had made of it for Sorochintsy Fair. Both versions are included in the present recording. The famous Hopak from Sorochintsy Fair also enjoyed an early separate existence in a piano arrangement by the composer. The dance was apparently intended for the finale either of the first act or of the last. It fits well enough into the celebration that closes the whole opera with all misunderstandings resolved.

Khovanshchina (The Khovansky Affair), described as a national music drama, was left incomplete, to be revised for posthumous performance by Rimsky-Korsakov, with later versions by Ravel and Stravinsky for Dyagilev, and by Shostakovich. The work, based on the historical research of the composer and of Stasov, deals with the conflicts over the succession after the death in 1682 of Tsar Fyodor Alexeyevich. The strel’tsï (musketeers), led by Prince Ivan Khovansky, had their own reactionary ambitions, while other factions included the so-called Old Believers, and Sofia Alexeyvna, sixth child of the first of the Romanovs and sister of the former Tsar, appointed Regent, while her young brother Ivan shared the position of Tsar with his half-brother Peter, later sole ruler as Peter the Great. The opposition to Peter, still a boy, is largely one of conservative reaction to religious and political reforms that are taking place.

Prince Vasily Golitsïn, at one time the reputed lover of Sofia Alexeyevna, represents her interests, but his involvement in her plan to have Peter murdered and to take the throne for herself leads to his exile, an event mourned by the people of Moscow. Pictures at an Exhibition was written in 1874 as a set of piano pieces, a translation into music of paintings, designs, models and drawings by Mussorgsky’s friend Victor Hartmann, who had died the year before. The exhibits are linked by a Promenade, as the visitor to the exhibition goes from exhibit to exhibit. The titles of the works are largely self-explanatory. Gnomus is a design for nutcrackers in the shape of a gnome; The Old Castle shows a troubadour singing outside the castle walls and the Tuileries depicts children at play and quarrelling, while nursemaids gossip, in the famous Paris gardens.

Bydlo is a traditional Polish peasant ox-cart, with its creaking wooden wheels slowly turning; Ballet of the Chickens in their Shells shows designs for children’s costumes, as described in the title, and Samuel Goldenberg and Schmuyle, the names of those portrayed the invention of the painter, is a picture of two Jews, one rich, one poor, a present by Hartmann to the composer. In Limoges market-place old women gossip, discussing the fate of an escaped cow, and more trivial nonsense, while the Roman Catacombs, subtitled Sepulchrum Romanum, are lit by a flickering lamp, the skulls piled on either side beginning to glow in the light from within. This is linked to the eerie With the Dead in the Language of the Dead. The macabre continues with The Hut on Fowl’s Legs, a clock in the form of the hut of the witch Baba Yaga, who crunches up children’s bones and flies through the night on a pestle. The triumphant conclusion offers a design for a triumphal gate in Kiev, to commemorate the escape of Tsar Alexander II from assassination in 1866.

The music contrasts the massive structure with the sound of a solemn procession of chanting monks. Pictures at an Exhibition is equally well known in the colourful orchestration of the work by the French composer Maurice Ravel.

Question: Who resigned his army commission in 1858 to write music, such as the opera "Boris Godunov" and "Pictures at an Exhibition"?
Answer: Modest Mussorgsky