Modest Mussorgsky was born in 1839 on March 9 in the village of Karevo, Toropetsk district, on his parents’ estate in the Pskov province. His father is a representative of an ancient family of nobles, the Mussorgskys, 30 generations from Rurik. Modest Petrovich completed the course in 1856 at the former School of Guards Ensigns, after which he served for a short time in the Preobrazhensky Regiment of the Life Guards, and then in the Main Directorate of Engineering, State Control and the Ministry of State Property.

Modest's artistic development was greatly influenced by the Balakirevsky musical circle, which revealed his true calling and forced him to pay serious attention to musical studies. Balakirev supervised Mussorgsky's reading of orchestral scores, introduction to the analysis and critical evaluation of musical works.

Previously, Gehrke taught Mussorgsky to play the piano, and as a result he became an excellent pianist. Modest did not study singing, but despite this, he had a very beautiful baritone voice, so he performed vocal music well. In St. Petersburg, the Bernard company published his piano piece in 1852. Mussorgsky wrote two “scherzos” in 1858, one of which was orchestrated and performed in 1860 at a concert of Russian music. society under the leadership of A. G. Rubinstein.

Next, Mussorgsky writes several romances and takes on the music for Sophocles’ tragedy “Oedipus”; the final work was not completed, and only 1 chorus from the music to Oedipus, which was performed in 1861 at a concert by K.N. Lyadov, was published as part of Mussorgsky’s posthumous works. Modest Petrovich initially chose “Salammbô,” a novel by Flaubert, for the operatic treatment, but soon left this work unfinished, as well as attempts to create music for the plot of Gogol’s “Marriage.”

The opera "Boris Godunov", which was staged on the stage of the St. Petersburg Mariinsky Theater in 1874, brought Mussorgsky fame and at the same time was recognized in some music circles as an outstanding work. This was the 2nd edition, which dramatically changed dramatically after its first edition was rejected for being “unstageable” by the theater’s repertoire committee. After 15 performances of “Boris Godunov” over a period of 10 years, the opera was removed from the repertoire. And only at the end of November in 1896 “Godunov” returned, but in the edition of Rimsky-Korsakov, who, at his own discretion, re-arranged and corrected the entire opera. In this form, this opera was presented on the stage of the Great Hall of the Musical Society, with the participation of representatives of the “Society of Musical Meetings”. By that time, the company Bessel and Co. in St. Petersburg had released a new clavier “Godunov”, the preface to which is Rimsky-Korsakov’s explanation of the reasons that prompted him to make this alteration, among which he named “bad texture” and “bad orchestration” the original version of Mussorgsky himself. “Boris Godunov” was first presented in Moscow in 1888 on the stage of the Bolshoi Theater. Interest in the edition of “Boris Godunov” is renewed in our time.

In 1875, Mussorgsky, according to the plan of V.V. Stasov, began the opera-drama “Khovanshchina”, while simultaneously working on a comedy opera based on the plot of Gogol’s “Sorochinskaya Fair”. He practically finished the text and music of “Khovanshchina”, with the exception of 2 excerpts, he did not instrument the opera, which was done by N. Rimsky-Korsakov, who, by the way, finished “Khovanshchina” with his own alterations, adapting it for the stage. Bessel and Co. published the opera score and clavier in 1883. “Khovanshchina” was performed on the stage of St. Petersburg, a dramatic music circle in 1886 under the direction of S. Yu. Goldstein; in 1893 on stage in the Kononovsky Hall in St. Petersburg by a private opera community; in 1892 in Kyiv near Setov. D.D. Shostakovich, the greatest Soviet composer, created his own edition of Khovanshchina in 1960, in which this opera is still staged all over the world.

Mussorgsky managed to compose the first 2 acts for “Sorochinskaya Fair”, and for the 3rd act: Gopak, Dumku Parasi and Parubka’s Dream, in which he used a reworking of his own symphonic fantasy called “Night on Bald Mountain”, which he made for an unrealized collaboration in the form of the opera-ballet “Mlada”.

The opera is being staged in the version of the famous musician V. Ya. Shebalin.

Modest Mussorgsky was an unusually impressionable, enthusiastic, kind-hearted and vulnerable person. Despite his outward pliability and pliability, he was unusually firm in all views concerning his creative prejudices. But the morbid passion for alcohol, which progressed greatly in the last 10 years of his life, was destructive to his health, life and the intensity of his creativity. And subsequently, after a series of failures in his career and dismissal from the ministry, he was forced to live, receiving odd jobs and with the help of his friends.

Mussorgsky died in a military hospital in 1881 on March 16, where he was admitted after another attack of delirium tremens. One lifetime and most famous portrait was a portrait painted by Repin in the same hospital just a couple of days before Mussorgsky’s death.

Mussorgsky was a great original talent, and exclusively Russian. He belonged to the number of musical figures who, on the one hand, strived for formalized realism, and on the other, for a poetic and colorful disclosure of text, words and mood through music that flexibly followed them. His national compositional thinking is visible in his ability to handle folk songs, and in the very composition of the music, its harmonic, rhythmic and melodic features, and finally in the choice of subjects, mainly from Russian life. Mussorgsky hated routine, and there were no authorities for him in music; he did not adhere to the rules of musical grammar, seeing in them not scientific principles, but only a collection of compositional techniques from past eras. He gave himself over to his burning imagination everywhere, and always strived for something new. Mussorgsky was good at humorous music, he was witty, resourceful and varied in this genre; you just need to remember his tales about “The Goat”, “For Mushrooms”, “The Seminarist”, who constantly finished off Latin and was in love with the priest’s daughter, “Revel” "

The composer quite rarely dwelled on exclusively lyrical themes, and they were given to him quite rarely. The best lyrical romances were “Jewish Melody” (lyrics by May) and “Night” (lyrics by Pushkin). The composer's creativity was very widespread when he turned to the Russian life of the peasants. The richness of color is noted in such songs as “Eryomushka’s Lullaby” (lyrics by Nekrasov), “Kalistrat” (lyrics by Nekrasov), “Sleep, sleep, peasant son” (“Voevoda” by Ostrovsky), “Svetik Savishna” (his own), “Gopak "(Haydamaky" by Shevchenko), "Mischief" (own) and others. Mussorgsky very successfully found here a true and deep dramatic musical expression of that heavy, hopeless sorrow that was hidden under the external humor in the lyrics.

Modes Petrovich, in such a narrow direction of music at first glance as “songs and romances,” was able to find completely new, original tasks, using at the same time original techniques to accomplish them, which was expressed quite clearly in vocal episodes from children’s life, which had the general title “Children’s ", in "King Saul" (male voice accompanied by piano), in 4 romances with the general title "Songs and Dances of Death" ("Trepak", "Lullaby", "Commander", "Serenade" - 1875-77. ), in “Joshua” (from original Jewish themes), in “The Defeat of Sennacherib” (for choir and orchestra).

Mussorgsky's specialty was vocal music. He was an exemplary reciter, grasping the smallest intricacies of the word. And in his works, he often reserved a wide place for monological and recitative style of presentation. Mussorgsky, having a talent similar to Dargomyzhsky, joined him in his views. But Modest Petrovich, in his adult works, unlike Dargomyzhsky, was able to overcome the innocent “illustrativeness” that passively followed the text of the music characteristic of this opera.

“Boris Godunov,” written by Mussorgsky based on Pushkin’s work of the same name, is one of the best works in world musical theater. The musical language and dramaturgy of the work belong to a new genre that emerged in the 20th century in various countries - the genre of musical stage drama, which, on the one hand, abandons many of the routine conventions of the traditional opera theater of that time, and on the other, strives to reveal dramatic action, in primarily through music. With all this, both the first and second editions of “Godunov” had significant differences in dramaturgy, being essentially two equal decisions of the author regarding a definitely identical plot. Particularly innovative in its time was the first edition, which was not staged until the mid-20th century, and which was very different from the then dominant operatic routine canons. That is why during the Mussorsky years the prevailing opinion was that Godunov was distinguished by “many mistakes and rough edges” and an “unsuccessful libretto.”

Similar prejudices characterized Rimsky-Korsakov, who argued that Mussorgsky had little experience in instrumentation, which occasionally lacked a successful variety of orchestral colors and colorfulness. A similar opinion was indicated in Soviet textbooks on musical literature. In reality, Mussorgsky's orchestral writing could not fit into the outline that was pleasing, to a greater extent, to Rimsky-Korsakov. This misunderstanding of Mussorgsky's style and orchestral thinking could be explained by the fact that the style was not similar to the lush decorative aesthetics of orchestration presentation, and this was a characteristic feature of the second half of the 19th century, and especially of Rimsky-Korsakov. Alas, prejudices about false shortcomings in Mussorgsky’s musical style, which were propagated by his followers and himself, dominated the academic traditions of Russian music for a long time, almost a century to come.

Contemporaries and colleagues were even more skeptical about Mussorgsky's subsequent musical drama - the opera "Khovanshchina", which reveals the theme of the events of Russian history at the end of the 17th century about the split and the Streltsy rebellion, which Mussorgsky wrote based on his own script and text. He created this creation with quite long interruptions, so it was never completed at the time of his death. Of all the editions of the opera that exist today, Shostakovich’s orchestration is considered to be the closest to the original, as well as the ending of the final act of the opera, which was done by Stravinsky. Both the scale and the design of this work are unusual. In comparison with “Godunov,” “Khovanshchina” is not just a drama about one historical figure, but in its own way an “impersonal” historiosophical drama. In the absence of a “central” clearly expressed character, which is characteristic of ordinary operatic dramaturgy at that time, entire layers of the life of the people become revealed and the theme of spiritual tragedy arises for the entire people, appearing at the turning point of their life and traditional historical way of life. To emphasize this genre feature, Mussorgsky gave the opera the subtitle “musical folk drama.”

Both the first and second dramas of the composer were able to quickly gain world recognition after the death of Mussorgsky, and to this day throughout the world they are considered among the most frequently performed creations of Russian music. Their international success was greatly influenced by the enthusiastic attitude of composers Ravel, Debussy, Stravinsky, as well as the activities of S. Diaghilev, who managed to stage them for the first time abroad. 20th century in Paris in “Russian Seasons”. Nowadays, most of the opera houses in the world are eager to stage these operas by Mussorgsky in urtext editions that are as close as possible to the author’s edition. But different theaters show “Godunov” in different editions of the author.

Mussorgsky was weakly inclined towards music in the so-called “completed” forms. Among the composer's orchestral creations, in addition to those mentioned above, attention deserves "Intermezzo", composed in 1861, and instrumented in 1867, which was built on a theme that was reminiscent of the music of the 18th century, and was published in the collection of posthumous works of Mussorsky in the instrumentation of Rimsky-Korsakov. “Night on Bald Mountain,” an orchestral fantasy, was also orchestrated and completed by Rimsky-Korsakov, and staged with great success in St. Petersburg in 1886.

“Pictures at an Exhibition” is another outstanding work by Mussorgsky, which was written for piano in 1874 in the form of illustration episodes for Hartmann’s watercolors. This work is in the form of a “end-to-end” suite-rondo with glued sections, where the main theme-refrain expresses the change of mood when walking between the paintings, and the images of the paintings that are considered are episodes between this theme. This work has more than once inspired other composers to write an orchestral version. The most famous edition belongs to one of Mussorgsky's most convinced admirers - Maurice Ravel.

In the 19th century, Mussorgsky's works were published by Bessel and Co. in St. Petersburg, and many were also published in Leipzig, thanks to Belyaev's company. In the 20th century, urtext editions of the composer’s works appeared in original versions, which were based on a thorough study of primary sources. A pioneer in this activity was Lamm, a Russian musicologist, who for the first time published urtext claviers of “Khovanshchina”, “Godunov”, editions of the author of all piano and vocal works by Mussorgsky.

Mussorgsky's works, which in many ways anticipated the new era, were able to have a huge impact on composers of the 20th century. His attitude to music as an expressive extension of human speech, as well as the coloristic basis of harmonic language, played a significant role in the “impressionistic” style of M. Ravel and C. Debussy. Mussorgsky's dramaturgy, imagery and style greatly influenced the work of Stravinsky, Shostakovich, Janacek, Berg, Messiaen and others.

Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky is an outstanding composer of the Russian Empire, a most brilliant author and member of the famous organization “The Mighty Handful”. He influenced the development of not only domestic, but also foreign music, and not only classical. His creative heritage includes operas, cycles of piano and vocal music, orchestral pieces, choral music, romances and songs.

Biography: the beginning

Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky was born on March 21, 1839 in Karevo, a village in the Pskov province of the Russian Empire.

Until the age of 10, he and his brother were home-schooled and only in 1849, having moved to St. Petersburg, they entered “Petrishule” - the first school in the cultural capital, founded in 1709.

Youth and maturity

The young man does not finish his studies and enters the School of Guards Ensigns, where he became deeply imbued with church music (Protestant, Greek, Catholic). Studying at school will leave a big imprint on Mussorgsky’s work.

In 1856, after graduating from school, he went to serve in the Preobrazhensky Regiment, where he met the famous Russian composer Alexander Sergeevich Dargomyzhsky. Then he changes his place of work to the Ministry of State Property.

Three years later, life introduces Modest to the head of the “Mighty Handful”. Under his watchful supervision, Mussorgsky devoted his free time to music studies: studying harmony, reading scores, analyzing works and developing his skills as a critic.

He was lucky by nature, he had a beautiful voice (baritone) and loved to perform at musical evenings. Thanks to Anton Avgustovich Gerke (Russian teacher), I was able to sufficiently master the piano.

At the end of his life, he was very upset by the collapse of the “Mighty Handful”. Mussorgsky could not calmly endure the misunderstanding and criticism of his works by his close friends (members of the musical assembly) and called his condition “nervous fever”; it later led to alcohol addiction. He is deprived of monetary income by resigning from the position of junior chief, as well as any financial support from loved ones.

The only enlightenment of that time was the opportunity to tour as an accompanist to the singer D. M. Leonova, since in addition to the compositions included in the program, he could also perform his own works.

In 1881, the composer's last major appearance took place. In St. Petersburg (at an evening in memory of Dostoevsky), Modest sat down at the instrument and composed on the fly an improvisation of a funeral bell chime. The impromptu, which amazed everyone present, became a kind of prototype of the author’s “forgive” for all the dead and living.

On February 13, 1881, placed in the Nikolaev hospital after an attack of delirium tremens, Mussorgsky dies without having time to finish his last works. He was buried at the Tikhvin cemetery in the Alexander Nevsky Lavra.

Creative path

Modest's musical talent manifested itself in early childhood. At the age of 7, under the supervision of his mother, he could play not very difficult piano works by Franz Liszt. But no one in the family took music seriously, so he was not provided with a professional musical education.

The compositional work began quite rapidly. With the writing of each work, new opportunities and sources of inspiration opened up for Modest, even if they were not complete.

Romances by Mussorgsky

Vocal music was his favorite direction. The composer wrote romances throughout his life; his collection includes about 70 works.

Mussorgsky was the successor of Dargomyzhsky’s work, whose motto was the statement “about life and truth.”

In the 50-60s of the 19th century, he wrote a number of romances, in which one can already recognize his individual style. As an author, he was interested not in the lyrical, but in the social side of life.

Mussorgsky's work reflected, original and bright, national Russian features. For example, in the composition “Trepak” we see a freezing drunken peasant, and the song “Lullaby” is, in fact, a monologue of a mother standing by the bed of a dying child.

Sometimes the source of inspiration could be any simple event. Here are just a few of his famous works:

• "Prayer" based on Lermontov's poems;
• "Rejected";
• “Forgotten” based on a famous pictorial subject by the artist Vereshchagin;
• "Kalistrat" ​​to the words of Nekrasov;
• "Orphan";
• "With a doll"

Mussorgsky had an excellent sense of humor. For example, the work “Seminarist” is filled with an accusatory meaning, the essence of which lies in the iron shackles that do not allow young life to break through the traditional orders of society.

However, the work was subsequently banned by censorship.

His other works of this genre:

• "Arrogance";
• "Raek";
• "The Tale of the Goat"

Opera "Boris Godunov"

The works that made the composer famous throughout the world are operas. The pinnacle of his work was the opera "Boris Godunov". M. P. Mussorgsky is the author of all the librettos in it. The libretto was based on the drama by A. S. Pushkin. The work was a real breakthrough and went beyond the usual opera of that time.

In the first edition, the work was presented to the Directorate of Imperial Theaters in 1869, but only 5 years later it was staged. The second edition dates back to 1872.

"Boris Godunov" is an opera that for the first time depicted the Russian people as a great large-scale force, and previously they served only as a background for the main character. In the work, the author demonstrates the doomed existence of ordinary people and the inevitability of mass revolutions.

Opera "Khovanshchina"

Even while working on the previous opera, Modest already had sketches of a new masterpiece in his head.

The peculiarity of the opera “Khovanshchina” by M. P. Mussorgsky lies in the faceless generalized main character, whose face is the people.

The work on the essay was difficult and long due to unforeseen circumstances, so by the end of his life it was never completed. The author wrote the libretto based on his own script.

The events take place in Russia during the 17th century, when there was a split and rebellion of the Streltsy.

The collapse of the "Mighty Handful", the deterioration of relations with Cui and Rimsky-Korsakov, the resignation of the head of the Balakirev circle dealt a strong emotional blow to Mussorgsky, but despite this, the author and composer continued his work.

Piano piece

In Mussorgsky's work, in addition to the vocal genre, piano music is widely represented.

In 1874, the cycle “Pictures at an Exhibition” by Mussorgsky was born. The impetus for writing the work was an exhibition of the artist Hartmann on the initiative of Stasov (music critic), which made a great impression on Modest.

The cycle consists of 10 paintings, alternating reality with fictitious fantasies and figures of the past.

Interesting fact: all the rooms are connected by a leitmotif (musical theme), which is associated with the feeling of walking. Thus, Mussorgsky draws an analogy with a journey through a gallery. This comparison is unique in its kind. Each number is given an individual name (in Latin and Russian), just like in painting.

Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" has dozens of orchestral arrangements and piano recordings, and is also present in some film adaptations, for example by the Soyuzmultfilm studio.

Summarizing

In addition to the genres listed above, Modest Mussorgsky also contributed to symphonic creativity. "Night on Bald Mountain" is the most famous example of fantasy for orchestral composition, composed in 1867.

Mussorgsky's work is a wealth of genius that influenced further Russian art. The composer forced us to rethink the canons in force at that time and left a masterpiece of musical heritage as a gift.

1839 - 1881

Life story

Modest Mussorgsky was born on March 21, 1839 in the village of Karevo, Toropetsk district, on the estate of his father, the poor landowner Pyotr Alekseevich. He spent his childhood in the Pskov region, in the wilderness, among forests and lakes. He was the youngest, fourth son in the family. The two eldest died one after another in infancy. All the tenderness of the mother, Yulia Ivanovna, was given to the remaining two, and especially to him, the youngest, Modinka. It was she who first began to teach him to play the old piano that stood in the hall of their wooden manor house.

But Mussorgsky's future was predetermined. At the age of ten, he and his older brother came to St. Petersburg. Here he was supposed to enter a privileged military school - the School of Guards Ensigns.

After graduating from the School, Mussorgsky was assigned to the Preobrazhensky Guards Regiment. Modest was seventeen years old. His duties were not onerous. But unexpectedly for everyone, Mussorgsky resigns and turns away from the path he had so successfully begun.

Not long before, one of the fellow Preobrazhenskys, who knew Dargomyzhsky, brought Mussorgsky to him. The young man immediately captivated the musician not only with his piano playing, but also with his free improvisations. Dargomyzhsky highly appreciated his extraordinary musical abilities and introduced him to Balakirev and Cui. Thus began a new life for the young musician, in which Balakirev and the “Mighty Handful” circle took the main place.

Creative activity

Mussorgsky's creative activity began vigorously. Each work opened up new horizons, even if it was not completed. Thus, the operas Oedipus Rex and Salammbo remained unfinished, where for the first time the composer tried to embody the most complex intertwining of the destinies of the people and a strong, powerful personality.

An extremely important role for Mussorgsky’s work was played by the unfinished opera Marriage (Act 1, 1868), in which he used the almost unchanged text of N. Gogol’s play, setting himself the task of musically reproducing human speech in all its subtlest bends. Fascinated by the idea of ​​programming, Mussorgsky created a number of symphonic works, including Night on Bald Mountain (1867).

But the most striking artistic discoveries were made in the 60s. in vocal music. Songs appeared where, for the first time in music, a gallery of folk types, humiliated and insulted people appeared: Kalistrat, Gopak, Svetik Savishna, Lullaby to Eremushka, Orphan, Po Mushrooms. Mussorgsky’s ability to accurately and accurately recreate living nature in music, reproduce vividly characteristic speech, and give the plot stage visibility is amazing. And most importantly, the songs are imbued with such a force of compassion for a disadvantaged person that in each of them an ordinary fact rises to the level of tragic generalization, to socially accusatory pathos. It is no coincidence that the song Seminarist was banned by censorship!

The pinnacle of Mussorgsky's creativity in the 60s. became the opera Boris Godunov. The democratically minded public greeted Mussorgsky's new work with true enthusiasm.

Work on Khovanshchina was difficult - Mussorgsky turned to material that went far beyond the scope of the opera performance. At this time, Mussorgsky was deeply affected by the collapse of the Balakirev circle, the cooling of relations with Cui and Rimsky-Korsakov, and Balakirev’s withdrawal from musical and social activities. However, despite everything, the creative power of the composer during this period amazes with the strength and richness of artistic ideas. In parallel with the tragic Khovanshchina, since 1875, Mussorgsky has been working on the comic opera Sorochinskaya Fair (based on Gogol). In the summer of 1874, he created one of the outstanding works of piano literature - the cycle Pictures at an Exhibition, dedicated to Stasov, to whom Mussorgsky was eternally grateful for his participation and support.

The idea to write the series Pictures at an Exhibition arose under the influence of the posthumous exhibition of works by the artist W. Hartmann in February 1874. He was a close friend of Mussorgsky, and his sudden death deeply shocked the composer. The work proceeded rapidly, intensely: Sounds and thoughts hung in the air, I swallowed and overeat, barely having time to scratch on the paper. And in parallel, one after another, 3 vocal cycles appear: Children's (1872, based on his own poems), Without the Sun (1874) and Songs and Dances of Death (1875-77 - both at the station of A. Golenishchev-Kutuzov). They become the result of the composer’s entire chamber and vocal work.

Seriously ill, severely suffering from poverty, loneliness, lack of recognition, Mussorgsky stubbornly insists that he will fight to the last drop of blood. Shortly before his death, in the summer of 1879, together with the singer D. Leonova, he made a large concert tour in the south of Russia and Ukraine, performed the music of Glinka, the Kuchkists, Schubert, Chopin, Liszt, Schumann, excerpts from his opera Sorochinskaya Fair and wrote significant words: Life calls to new musical work, broad musical work... to new shores of the still boundless art!

Fate decreed otherwise. Mussorgsky's health deteriorated sharply. In February 1881 there was a shock. Mussorgsky was placed in the Nikolaev Military Ground Hospital, where he died without having time to complete the Khovanshchina and the Sorochinsky Fair.

After his death, the entire composer’s archive went to Rimsky-Korsakov. He finished Khovanshchina, carried out a new edition of Boris Godunov and achieved their production on the imperial opera stage. The Sorochinsky fair was completed by A. Lyadov.

Biography

Following this, Mussorgsky wrote several romances and began to compose music for Sophocles’ tragedy “Oedipus”; the last work was not completed, and only one chorus from the music to Oedipus, performed in a concert by K. N. Lyadov in 1861, was published among the composer’s posthumous works. For the operatic treatment, Mussorgsky first chose Flaubert’s novel “Salammbô”, but soon left this work unfinished, as well as his attempt to write music for the plot of Gogol’s “The Marriage”.

Mussorgsky's fame was brought to him by the opera Boris Godunov, staged at the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg and immediately recognized as an outstanding work in some musical circles. This was already the second edition of the opera, significantly changed dramaturgically after the repertory committee of the theater rejected its first edition for being “unstageable.” Over the next 10 years, “Boris Godunov” was performed 15 times and then removed from the repertoire. Only at the end of November “Boris Godunov” saw the light again - but in an edition redone by N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov, who “corrected” and re-instrumented the entire “Boris Godunov” at his own discretion. In this form, the opera was staged on the stage of the Great Hall of the Musical Society (the new building of the Conservatory) with the participation of members of the “Society of Musical Meetings”. Firm Bessel and Co. in St. Petersburg. by this time had released a new score of Boris Godunov, in the preface to which Rimsky-Korsakov explains that the reasons that prompted him to undertake this alteration were the allegedly “bad texture” and “bad orchestration” of the author’s version of Mussorgsky himself. In Moscow, “Boris Godunov” was staged for the first time on the stage of the Bolshoi Theater in the city. Nowadays, interest in the author’s editions of “Boris Godunov” is being revived.

Portrait by Repin

In 1875, Mussorgsky began the dramatic opera (“folk musical drama”) “Khovanshchina” (according to the plan of V.V. Stasov), while simultaneously working on a comic opera based on the plot of “Sorochinskaya Fair” by Gogol. Mussorgsky almost managed to finish the music and text of “Khovanshchina” - but, with the exception of two fragments, the opera was not instrumented; the latter was done by N. Rimsky-Korsakov, who at the same time completed “Khovanshchina” (again, with his own alterations) and adapted it for the stage. The company Bessel and Co. published the opera score and clavier (). “Khovanshchina” was performed on the stage of the St. Petersburg Music and Drama Club in the city, under the direction of S. Yu. Goldstein; on the stage of the Kononovsky Hall - in the city, by a private operatic partnership; at Setov's, in Kiev, in In 1960, the Soviet composer Dmitry Dmitrievich Shostakovich made his version of the opera “Khovanshchina”, in which Mussorgsky’s opera is now staged all over the world.

For “Sorochinskaya Fair” Mussorgsky managed to compose the first two acts, as well as for the third act: Parubka’s Dream (where he used a reworking of his symphonic fantasy “Night on Bald Mountain”, made for an unrealized collective work - the opera-ballet “Mlada”), Dumku Parasi and Gopak. The opera is staged in the edition of the outstanding musician Vissarion Yakovlevich Shebalin.

Mussorgsky was an unusually impressionable, enthusiastic, kind-hearted and vulnerable person. For all his outward pliability and pliability, he was extremely firm in everything that related to his creative convictions. Addiction to alcohol, which progressed greatly in the last decade of his life, became destructive for Mussorgsky’s health, his life and the intensity of his work. As a result, after a series of failures in his career and his final dismissal from the ministry, Mussorgsky was forced to live on odd jobs and thanks to the support of friends.

Tvorchest belongs to a group of musical figures who strived - on the one hand - for formal realism, on the other hand - for a colorful and poetic disclosure of words, text and moods through music that flexibly follows them. Mussorgsky's national thinking as a composer is evident both in his ability to handle folk songs, and in the very structure of his music, in its melodic, harmonic and rhythmic features, and finally, in the choice of subjects, mainly from Russian life. Mussorgsky is a hater of routine; for him there are no authorities in music; he paid little attention to the rules of musical grammar, seeing in them not the principles of science, but only a collection of compositional techniques from previous eras. Mussorgsky gave himself up everywhere to his ardent imagination, everywhere he strived for novelty. Mussorgsky was generally successful in humorous music, and in this genre he was varied, witty and resourceful; one has only to remember his tale about “The Goat,” the story of the Latin-bashing “Seminarian” who is in love with the priest’s daughter, “Picking Mushrooms” (text by Mei), “Feast.”

Mussorgsky rarely dwells on “pure” lyrical themes, and they are not always given to him (his best lyrical romances are “Night,” to the words of Pushkin, and “Jewish Melody,” to the words of Mey); But Mussorgsky’s creativity is widely manifested in those cases when he turns to Russian peasant life. The following songs by Mussorgsky are noted for their rich colorfulness: “Kalistrat”, “Eryomushka’s Lullaby” (lyrics by Nekrasov), “Sleep, sleep, peasant son” (from “The Voevoda” by Ostrovsky), “Gopak” (from “Haydamaky” by Shevchenko), “Svetik Savishna " and "The Mischievous Man" (both of the latter are based on the words of Mussorgsky himself) and many others. etc.; Mussorgsky very successfully found here a truthful and deeply dramatic musical expression for that heavy, hopeless sorrow that is hidden under the external humor of the lyrics.

A strong impression is made by the expressive recitation of the songs “Orphan” and “Forgotten” (based on the plot of the famous painting by V.V. Vereshchagin).

In such a seemingly narrow area of ​​music as “romances and songs,” Mussorgsky was able to find completely new, original tasks, and at the same time apply new original techniques for their implementation, which was clearly expressed in his vocal paintings from childhood life, under with the general title “Children’s” (text by Mussorgsky himself), in 4 romances under the general title “Songs and Dances of Death” ( - ; words by Golenishchev-Kutuzov; “Trepak” - a picture of a tipsy peasant freezing in the forest in a blizzard; “Lullaby "paints a mother at the bedside of a dying child; the other two: "Serenade" and "Commander"; all are very colorful and dramatic), in "King Saul" (for male voice with piano accompaniment; text by Mussorgsky himself), in "The Defeat of Sennacherib" ( for choir and orchestra; words by Byron), in “Joshua”, successfully built on the original. Jewish themes.

Mussorgsky's specialty is vocal music. He is an exemplary reciter, grasping the slightest bends of the word; in his works he often devotes a large place to the monological-recitative style of presentation. Related to Dargomyzhsky in terms of his talent, Mussorgsky is also close to him in his views on musical drama, inspired by Dargomyzhsky’s opera “The Stone Guest.” However, unlike Dargomyzhsky, in his mature works Mussorgsky overcomes the pure “illustrativeness” of music passively following the text, characteristic of this opera.

“Boris Godunov” by Mussorgsky, written based on Pushkin’s drama of the same name (as well as under the great influence of Karamzin’s interpretation of this plot), is one of the best works of world musical theater, whose musical language and dramaturgy already belong to a new genre that took shape in the 19th century in a variety of countries - to the genre of musical stage drama, which, on the one hand, broke with many of the routine conventions of the then traditional opera theater, and on the other hand, sought to reveal dramatic action primarily through musical means. At the same time, both author's editions of "Boris Godunov" (1869 and 1874), significantly differing from each other in dramaturgy, are essentially two equivalent author's solutions to the same plot. The first edition (which was not staged until the mid-20th century) was especially innovative for its time, and was very different from the routine operatic canons that prevailed at that time. That is why during the years of Mussorgsky’s life the prevailing opinion was that his “Boris Godunov” was distinguished by an “unsuccessful libretto” and “many rough edges and mistakes.”

This kind of prejudice was largely characteristic primarily of Rimsky-Korsakov, who argued that Mussorgsky had little experience in instrumentation, although it was sometimes not without color and a successful variety of orchestral colors. This opinion was typical for Soviet textbooks of musical literature. In reality, Mussorgsky's orchestral writing simply did not fit into the outline that suited mainly Rimsky-Korsakov. Such a misunderstanding of Mussorgsky’s orchestral thinking and style (to which he, indeed, came almost self-taught) was explained by the fact that the latter was strikingly different from the lush and decorative aesthetics of orchestral presentation, characteristic of the second half of the 19th century - and, especially, of Rimsky-Korsakov himself. Unfortunately, the belief cultivated by him (and his followers) about the alleged “shortcomings” of Mussorgsky’s musical style began to dominate the academic tradition of Russian music for a long time—almost a century later.

An even more skeptical attitude from colleagues and contemporaries affected Mussorgsky’s next musical drama - the opera “Khovanshchina” on the theme of historical events in Russia at the end of the 17th century (schism and Streltsy rebellion), written by Mussorgsky with his own script and text. He wrote this work with long interruptions, and at the time of his death it remained unfinished (among the existing editions of the opera made by other composers, the orchestration by Shostakovich and the completion of the last act of the opera by Stravinsky can be considered the closest to the original). Both the concept of this work and its scale are unusual. Compared to “Boris Godunov,” “Khovanshchina” is not just a drama of one historical person (through which the philosophical themes of power, crime, conscience and retribution are revealed), but already a kind of “impersonal” historiosophical drama, in which, in the absence of a clearly expressed “ the central" character (characteristic of standard operatic dramaturgy of that time), entire layers of people's life are revealed and the theme of the spiritual tragedy of the entire people that occurs with the destruction of its traditional historical and life way is raised. To emphasize this genre feature of the opera “Khovanshchina,” Mussorgsky gave it the subtitle “folk musical drama.”

Both musical dramas of Mussorgsky won relatively quick world recognition after the death of the composer, and to this day throughout the world they are among the most frequently performed works of Russian music (their international success was greatly facilitated by the admiring attitude of such composers as Debussy, Ravel, Stravinsky - as well as entrepreneurial the activity of Sergei Diaghilev, who staged them for the first time abroad already at the beginning of the 20th century in his “Russian Seasons” in Paris). Nowadays, most opera houses in the world strive to stage both of Mussorgsky’s operas in urtext editions that are as close as possible to the author’s. At the same time, different editions of Boris Godunov (either the first or the second) are shown in different theaters.

Mussorgsky had little inclination towards music in “finished” forms (symphonic, chamber, etc.). Of Mussorgsky's orchestral works, in addition to those already mentioned, Intermezzo (composed in the city, instrumented in the city), built on a theme reminiscent of the music of the 18th century, and published among Mussorgsky's posthumous works, with instrumentation by Rimsky-Korsakov, deserves attention. The orchestral fantasy “Night on Bald Mountain” (the material of which was later included in the opera “Sorochinskaya Fair”) was also completed and orchestrated by N. Rimsky-Korsakov and was performed with great success in St. Petersburg; this is a brightly colorful picture of the “Sabbath of the spirits of darkness” and the “greatness of Chernobog.”

Another outstanding work by Mussorgsky is “Pictures at an Exhibition,” written for piano in 1874, as musical illustrations-episodes for watercolors by V. A. Hartmann. The form of this work is a “end-to-end” suite-rondo with sections welded together, where the main theme-refrain (“Promenade”) expresses the change of mood when walking from one painting to another, and the episodes between this theme are the images of the paintings in question. This work has more than once inspired other composers to create its orchestral editions, the most famous of which belongs to Maurice Ravel (one of Mussorgsky's most staunch admirers).

In the 19th century, Mussorgsky's works were published by V. Bessel and Co. in St. Petersburg; much was published in Leipzig by the company of M. P. Belyaev. In the 20th century, urtext editions of Mussorgsky's works began to appear in original versions, based on a careful study of primary sources. The pioneer of such activity was the Russian musicologist P. Ya. Lamm, who for the first time published the urtext claviers “Boris Godunov”, “Khovanshchina”, and the author’s editions of all vocal and piano works by Mussorgsky.

Mussorgsky's works, which in many ways anticipated the new era, had a tremendous influence on composers of the 20th century. The attitude towards musical fabric as an expressive extension of human speech and the coloristic nature of its harmonic language played an important role in the formation of the “impressionistic” style of C. Debussy and M. Ravel (by their own admission), the style, drama and imagery of Mussorgsky greatly influenced the work L. Janacek, I. Stravinsky, D. Shostakovich (it is characteristic that they are all composers of Slavic culture), A. Berg (the dramaturgy of his opera “Wozzeck” according to the “scene-fragment” principle is very close to “Boris Godunov”), O Messiaen and many others.

Major works

• "Boris Godunov" (1869, 2nd edition 1872)
• “Khovanshchina” (1872-80, completed by N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov, 1883)
• "Kalistrat"
• "Orphan"
• “Sorochinskaya Fair” (1874-80, completed by Ts. A. Cui, 1916),
• satirical romances “Seminarist” and “Classic” (1870)
• vocal cycle “Children’s” (1872),
• piano cycle “Pictures at an Exhibition” (1874),
• vocal cycle “Without the Sun” (1874),
• vocal cycle “Songs and Dances of Death” (1877)
• symphonic poem “Night on Bald Mountain”

Memory

Monument at Mussorgsky's grave

Streets named after Mussorgsky in cities

Monuments to Mussorgsky in cities

• Karevo village

Other objects

• Ural State Conservatory in Yekaterinburg.
• Opera and Ballet Theater in St. Petersburg.
• Music school in St. Petersburg.

see also

Bibliography

Antonina Vasilyeva. "Russian labyrinth. Biography of M. P. Mussorgsky." Pskov regional printing house, 2008.

• Roerich N. K. Mussorgsky // Artists of Life. - Moscow: International Center of the Roerichs, 1993. - 88 p.
• V.V. Stasov, article in “Bulletin of Europe” (May and June).
• V. V. Stasov, “Perov and M.” (“Russian Antiquity”, 1883, vol. XXXVIII, pp. 433-458);
• V.V. Stasov, "M.P. Mussorgsky. In Memory of Him" ​​(Historical Vestn., 1886, March); him, "In Memory of M." (SPb., 1885);
• V. Baskin, “M. P. M. Biographical. essay" (Russian Thought, 1884, books 9 and 10; separately, M., 1887);
• S. Kruglikov, "M. and his" Boris Godunov ("Artist", 1890, No. 5);
• P. Trifonov, “Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky” (“Western of Europe”, 1893, December).
• Tumanina N., M. P. Mussorgsky, M. - L., 1939;
• Asafiev B.V., Izbr. works, vol. 3, M., 1954;
• Orlova A., Works and days of M. P. Mussorgsky. Chronicle of Life and Creativity, M., 1963
• Khubov G., Mussorgsky, M., 1969.
• Shlifshtein S. Mussorgsky. Artist. Time. Fate. M., 1975
• Rakhmanova M. Mussorgsky and his time. - Soviet music, 1980, No. 9-10
• M. P. Mussorgsky in the memoirs of his contemporaries. M., 1989

Links

• Mussorgsky Modest Site about Mussorgsky.
• Mussorgsky Modest Site about the life and work of the Russian composer.
• Mussorgsky Modest Creative portrait on the site Belcanto.Ru.

Modest Mussorgsky. Songs and romances

Mussorgsky composed chamber vocal music throughout his life. He created about 70 works, varied both in content and in the form of its implementation. This is lyricism - poetically bright and dramatically confessional; bright realistic sketches of folk life - “folk pictures”; musical portraits that amaze with the depth of their psychological characteristics.

Developing the traditions of Dargomyzhsky, the composer uses the genres of monologue-scene, monologue-story, ballad, dramatic and satirical song. The range of poets to whom Mussorgsky addressed is very wide: these are poems by modern Russian authors - A. Koltsov, N. Nekrasov, A. Pleshcheev, L. Mey, A. Tolstoy, V. Kurochkin, A. Golenishchev-Kutuzov, as well as poetry J. W. Goethe and G. Heine; Often the composer himself wrote the lyrics for his works. Mussorgsky's songs and romances amaze with the brightness and novelty of their musical language. In the vocal parts, the melodious intonations of peasant songs - lyrical, lullabies, laments and lamentations - are harmoniously combined with declamation, which, according to the author, reproduces human speech in all its “subtle bends.”

The piano part is always subordinated to the general artistic concept and is diverse in texture, timbre and harmonic colors. Among the “folk pictures” created in the 1860s, the song “Svetik Savishna”, composed under the impression of a village incident, stands out for its piercing truthfulness. V.V. Stasov recalled the composer’s own story: “He once stood at the window and was amazed at the bustle that was happening before his eyes. The unfortunate holy fool declared his love for a young woman he liked... and he was ashamed of himself, of his ugliness and unfortunate situation; he himself understood how nothing in the world, especially the happiness of love, existed for him. Mussorgsky was deeply amazed; the type and the scene sank deeply into his soul; “Instantly, unique forms and sounds appeared to embody the images that shocked him.”

Mussorgsky himself wrote the words of the song, which were born along with the music. The entire play is based on the repetition and development of the prayer motif, which conveys the excited speech of the holy fool, is based on the intonation of lamentation and has a five-beat meter characteristic of folk poetry and music: The image is complemented by a monotonous dancing rhythm of the accompaniment, depicting the clumsy movements of the character. “This is Shakespeare in music” - this is how composer and music critic A. N. Serov said about “Savishna”. Mussorgsky's comic talent was clearly demonstrated in another vocal sketch, written in his own words - “Seminarist”. In this, according to the author’s definition, “picture from nature,” a healthy village guy stupidly and senselessly crams Latin that is incomprehensible and unnecessary to him, and in his thoughts the image of the ruddy Stesha constantly appears - the priest’s daughter, whom he fell in love with during the service, for which was beaten by the priest.

The monologue contrasts two musical images - a monotonous “cramming” recitative, mechanically repeating Latin words on one sound, and a wide, sweeping melody associated with memories of the beautiful Stesha. The vocal cycle "Children's" (words by Mussorgsky) consists of seven miniatures - scenes in which the composer reveals the world of children's feelings. “Everything that is poetic, naive, sweet, a little crafty, good-natured, charming, childishly hot, dreamy and deeply touching in the world of a child - appeared here in unprecedented forms, untouched by anyone,” wrote V. V. Stasov. The first sketch, “With the Nanny,” dedicated to Dargomyzhsky, unusually truthfully conveys the subtlest shades of children’s speech. Flexible recitative of the vocal part, constant change of size (7/4 - 3/4 - 3/2 - 5/4 - 6/4, etc.) reproduce the baby’s various intonations, and bright contrasts of dynamics, registers, changes of harmonies accompanied help to create both wonderful images of nanny’s fairy tales (“about beech” and “funny”), as well as the impressions and experiences of a child.

The ballad “Forgotten” (words by A. Golenishchev-Kutuzov) - one of the most striking “dramatic songs” of the last period of Mussorgsky’s work - is dedicated to the theme of death. It was created under the impression of the painting of the same name by the artist V. Vereshchagin, depicting a dead Russian soldier abandoned on a deserted battlefield (This painting was part of the so-called “Turkestan series” of the artist, which told about Russia’s military actions in Central Asia (1860s) , about the fate of ordinary people, about the heroism of Russian soldiers. The war, as depicted by the artist, was a universal tragedy. During the exhibition, Vereshchagin was accused of slandering the Russian army; under the influence of these attacks, the artist, in a fit of despair, destroyed three paintings, including “The Forgotten” ). This is how V.V. Stasov described Vereshchagin’s work: “...This is a poor soldier, killed in battle and forgotten in the field.

In the distance, across the river, “their own” are leaving, perhaps so that the same thing that happened to this one will soon happen to them, to each in turn. And then guests fly from the sky in a cloud: the eagles are flapping their wide wings, and the crows are whole they came down in a flock and were about to begin a rich feast... It seemed to me that the whole heart was turning painfully in the one who conceived and painted this picture. What love, tenderness and indignation must have been in full swing there!" The poet and composer expanded the content of the picture, contrasting the image of a killed warrior with the image of his young wife, feeding her son and waiting for her husband to return. The first section of the ballad, describing the death of a soldier, sounds in a gloomy E-flat minor and has the features of a funeral march. Its measured, restrained gait fascinates with its doom.

The harsh vocal part, which combines declamation and song breadth, is permeated with a decisive dotted rhythm. Gradually rising upward, she, having reached the climax, immediately returns to the starting point. The piano part, at first duplicating the melody, is then enriched with sharp second harmonies: In the next episode, sad and tenderly soulful music creates a distant, peaceful image of love and expectation. The vocal melody becomes light, soulful and takes on a folk-song character. In the piano part, thanks to the break in the registers, two-dimensionality appears: the upper voices of the accompaniment are saturated with smooth lullaby intonations and soft calm harmonies; but the quart chant persistently repeated in the bass with its dotted lines.

The short, quiet conclusion - “And that one is forgotten - lies alone” - is built on the “torn” initial motive of the work, striking with its tragic sound. Mussorgsky's innovative ideas, his discoveries in the field of musical speech, and his deep understanding of the complexity of human nature and psyche were in many ways ahead of their era. They were further developed in the works of Russian and European composers of the 20th century - Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Sviridov, Debussy, Ravel, Poulenc and many others. According to V.V. Stasov, “Mussorgsky was one of those few who lead their business with us to distant and wonderful, unprecedented and incomparable ‘new shores’.”