Who is Musorgsky Modest Petrovich. Mussorgsky short biography and interesting facts

Mussorgsky's brief biography and interesting facts from the life of the Russian composer and pianist are set out in this article.

Modest Mussorgsky short biography

Mussorgsky Modest Petrovich was born on March 21, 1839 in the village of Karevo into a family of Smolensk noblemen.

At a young age, he learned to play keyboards. Having moved to St. Petersburg, Modest studies with the great pianist Gercke. The teacher encouraged his student to write music. Mussorgsky's first musical work is the polka Porte-enseigne Polka, written in 1852.

In the footsteps of his family, in 1852 he entered the School of Cavalry Junkers and Guards Ensigns in St. Petersburg. In 1856-1858 he served as an officer of the Life Guards in the Preobrazhensky Regiment.

At the service, he meets with the composer Alexander Borodin, Caesar Cui, Alexander Dargomyzhsky, Vladimir Stasov and Mily Balakirev. Modest joined the "New Russian Music School", which they created. Its broader name is "The Mighty Handful". Under the influence of Balakirev, Mussorgsky devoted all his time to composition, leaving the service in 1858.

During the period of 1850s-1860s he created many piano and orchestral compositions, romances and songs. But certain circumstances forced him again in 1863 to go to the service. Until 1868, Modest worked as an official in the Engineering Department. From 1868 to 1879 he moved to a new place of service - the Forest Department, and a year later - to the State Control.

In 1879, as an accompanist, he made a concert tour with the singer Leonova across Russia. In the period 1880-1881 he worked as an accompanist in her open music classes.

Mussorgsky's health deteriorated sharply in February 1881. He was placed in the Nikolaevsky military hospital. Once a visitor Ilya Repin came to him and painted his famous portrait. The composer died on March 28, 1881 in the same hospital.

Mussorgsky's works"Salambo", "Boris Godunov", "Marriage", "Khovanshchina", "Sorochinsky Fair", "Seminarist", "Goat", "Feast", "Sleep, sleep, peasant son", "Gopak", "Svetik Savishna ”,“ Flea ”,“ Kalistrat ”,“ For mushrooms ”,“ Lullaby of Eremushki ”,“ Mischievous ”,“ Night on Bald Mountain ”,“ Intermezzo ”.

Modest Mussorgsky interesting facts

From the age of 6 he studied music, under the guidance of his mother.

He had an excellent musical memory and could immediately memorize complex operas.

During his short life (42 years), Mussorgsky created 5 operas(4 of which have not been completed), a number of symphonic works, cycles of vocal and piano music, many romances and choirs.

Since 1863, the composer began to add the letter “G” to his last name. Until this year, all documents were signed as Mussorgsky.

Ilya Repin created the only portrait painted during Modest's lifetime.

At the burial place of the great composer, there is now a bus stop.

In the last years of Mussorgsky's life experienced severe depression because of the non-recognition of his work, loneliness, everyday and material difficulties.

Mussorgsky suffered from drunkenness. After another drinking he started delirium tremens. Once in the hospital, he was strictly forbidden to drink alcohol. But Modest bribed the worker and he bought him a bottle of wine. And the next day the composer was gone.

The ideas and thoughts of MP Mussorgsky (1839-1881), a brilliant self-taught composer, were ahead of their time in many ways and paved the way for the musical art of the 20th century. In this article we will try to most fully characterize the list of works by Mussorgsky. Everything written by the composer, who considered himself a follower of A. S. Dargomyzhsky, but went further, is distinguished by a deep penetration into the psychology of not only a single person, but also the masses of the people. Like all members of the "Mighty Handful", Modest Petrovich was inspired by the national direction in his activities.

vocal music

Mussorgsky's list of works in this genre covers three types of moods:

• Lyrical in early compositions and turning into lyrical-tragic in later compositions. The cycle “Without the Sun”, created in 1874, becomes the peak.
• "People's Pictures". These are scenes and sketches from the life of peasants (“Lullaby to Eremushka”, “Svetik Savishna”, “Kalistrat”, “Orphan”). Their culmination will be "Trepak" and "Forgotten" (cycle "Dance of Death").
• social satire. These include the romances "Goat", "Seminarian", "Classic", created during the 1860s of the next decade. The suite "Rayok", which embodied the gallery of satyrs, becomes the pinnacle.

The list separately includes the vocal cycle "Children's" and "Songs and Dances of Death", created in his own words in 1872, in which everything is filled with tragic moods.

In the ballad “The Forgotten One”, inspired by a painting by V.V. Vereshchagin, later destroyed by the artist, the composer and the author of the text contrasted the image of a soldier lying on the battlefield and the gentle melody of a lullaby that a peasant woman sings to her son, promising a meeting with his father. But her child will never see him.

"Flea" from Goethe was performed brilliantly and always as an encore by Fyodor Chaliapin.

Means of musical expression

M. Mussorgsky updated the entire musical language, taking recitative and peasant songs as a basis. His harmonies are quite unusual. They correspond to new feelings. They are dictated by the development of experience and mood.

operas

It is impossible not to include his operatic work in the list of Mussorgsky's works. For 42 years of his life, he managed to write only three operas, but what! "Boris Godunov", "Khovanshchina" and "Sorochinsky Fair". In them, he boldly combines tragic and comic features, which is reminiscent of the works of Shakespeare. The image of the people is the fundamental principle. In addition, each character is given personal traits. Most of all, the composer is worried about his native country during times of unrest and upheaval.

In "Boris Godunov" the country is on the verge of Troubles. It reflects the relationship between the king and the people as a single person, who is animated by one idea. The composer wrote the folk drama "Khovanshchina" according to his own libretto. In it, the composer was interested in the Streltsy rebellion and the church schism. But he did not have time to orchestrate it and died. Finished orchestrated by N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov. The role of Dositheus at the Mariinsky Theater was played by F. Chaliapin. It doesn't have the usual main characters. Society is not opposed to the individual. Power is in the hands of one or the other character. It recreates episodes of the struggle of the old reactionary world against the reforms of Peter the Great.

"Pictures at an Exhibition"

Creativity for pianoforte is presented by the composer in one cycle, created in 1874. "Pictures at an Exhibition" is a unique work. This is a suite of ten different pieces. Being a virtuoso pianist, M. Mussorgsky took advantage of all the expressive possibilities of the instrument. These musical works by Mussorgsky are so bright and virtuoso that they amaze with their "orchestral" sound. Six pieces under the general title "The Walk" are written in the key of B-flat major. The rest are in B minor. By the way, they were often arranged for the orchestra. M. Ravel did it best of all. The composer's vocal motifs with their recitativeness, songliness and declamatory nature organically entered this work of M. Mussorgsky.

Symphonic creativity

Modest Mussorgsky creates a number of musical works in this area. The most important is Ivan's Night on Bald Mountain. Continuing the theme of G. Berlioz, the composer depicted a coven of witches.

He was the first to show evil fantastic pictures to Russia. The main thing for him was maximum expressiveness with a minimum of means used. Contemporaries did not understand the novelty, but mistook it for the ineptness of the author.

In conclusion, we must name the most famous works of Mussorgsky. In principle, we have listed almost all of them. These are two great operas on a historical theme: "Boris Godunov" and "Khovanshchina" are staged on the world's best stages. They also include the vocal cycles "Without the Sun" and "Songs and Dances of Death", as well as "Pictures at an Exhibition".

The brilliant author was buried in St. Petersburg on the Soviet government, making redevelopment, destroyed his grave, filled this place with asphalt and made it a bus stop. This is how we treat recognized world geniuses.

Biography

Mussorgsky's father came from the old noble family of Mussorgsky. Until the age of 10, Modest and his older brother Filaret were educated at home. In 1849, having moved to St. Petersburg, the brothers entered the German school Petrishule. A few years later, without graduating from college, Modest entered the School of Guards ensigns, which he graduated in 1856. Then Mussorgsky served briefly in the Life Guards Preobrazhensky Regiment, then in the main engineering department, in the Ministry of State Property and in state control.

Modest Mussorgsky - officer of the Preobrazhensky Regiment

By the time he joined Balakirev's musical circle, Mussorgsky was a superbly educated and erudite Russian officer (he was fluent in French and German, understood Latin and Greek) and aspired to become (as he himself put it) a "musician". Balakirev forced Mussorgsky to pay serious attention to musical studies. Under his guidance, Mussorgsky read orchestral scores, analyzed harmony, counterpoint and form in the works of recognized Russian and European composers, and developed the skill of their critical evaluation.

Mussorgsky began work on a large form with music for Sophocles' tragedy Oedipus, but did not finish it (one choir was performed in a concert by K. N. Lyadov in 1861, and was also published posthumously among other works of the composer). The next big plans - operas based on Flaubert's novel "Salambo" (another name is "The Libyan") and on the plot of Gogol's "Marriage" - were also not realized to the end. Music from these sketches Mussorgsky used in his later compositions.

The next major idea - the opera "Boris Godunov" based on the tragedy of A. S. Pushkin - Mussorgsky brought to an end. The premiere on the stage of the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg in the city took place on the material second version of the opera, the dramaturgy of which the composer was forced to make significant changes, since the repertory committee of the theater rejected first editorial for "non-staging". Over the next 10 years, "Boris Godunov" was given 15 times and then removed from the repertoire. Only at the end of November, Boris Godunov saw the light again - in the edition of 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. By this time, the Bessel & Co. firm in St. Petersburg had produced a new clavier for Boris Godunov, in the preface to which Rimsky-Korsakov explains that the reasons that prompted him to undertake this alteration were supposedly “bad texture” and “bad orchestration” author's version of Mussorgsky himself. In Moscow, "Boris Godunov" was staged for the first time at the Bolshoi Theater in the city. In our time, interest in the author's editions of "Boris Godunov" has revived.

In 1872, Mussorgsky conceived 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 Gogol’s “Sorochinsky Fair”. "Khovanshchina" was almost completely finished in the clavier, but (with the exception of two fragments) it was not instrumented. The first stage edition of Khovanshchina (including the instrumentation) was performed in 1883 by N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov. In the same year, Bessel & Co. published her score and piano score. The first performance of "Khovanshchina" took place in 1886 in St. Petersburg, in the Kononov Hall, by the amateur Music and Drama Circle. In 1958, D. D. Shostakovich completed another version of Khovanshchina. Currently, the opera is staged mainly in this edition.

For the Sorochinsky Fair, Mussorgsky composed the first two acts, as well as several scenes for the third act: Parubka’s Dream (where he used the music of the symphonic fantasy Night on Bald Mountain, made earlier for an unrealized collective work - the opera-ballet Mlada), Dumka Parasi and Gopak. Now this opera is staged in the version of V. Ya. Shebalin.

Last years

In the 1870s, Mussorgsky painfully experienced the gradual collapse of the "Mighty Handful" - a trend that he perceived as a concession to musical conformism, cowardice, even betrayal of the Russian idea. It was agonizing that his work was not understood in the official academic environment, as, for example, at the Mariinsky Theater, which was then directed by foreigners and compatriots who sympathized with Western opera fashion. But a hundred times more painful was the rejection of his innovation on the part of people whom he considered close friends (Balakirev, Cui, Rimsky-Korsakov, etc.):

At the first screening of the 2nd act of the Sorochinskaya Fair, I was convinced of a fundamental misunderstanding of the music themselves of the collapsed "bunch" of Little Russian comedy: such a cold blew from their views and demands that "the heart was frozen," as Archpriest Avvakum says. Nevertheless, I paused, pondered, and checked myself more than once. It can't be that I'm wrong in my aspirations, it can't be. But it's a shame that the musicians of the collapsed "bunch" have to be interpreted through the "barrier" behind which they remained.

I. E. Repin. Portrait of the composer M. P. Mussorgsky

These experiences of non-recognition and "incomprehension" were expressed in "nervous fever", which intensified in the 2nd half of the 1870s, and as a result - in addiction to alcohol. Mussorgsky was not in the habit of making preliminary sketches, sketches, and drafts. He thought about everything for a long time, composed and recorded completely finished music. This feature of his creative method, multiplied by nervous illness and alcoholism, was the reason for the slowdown in the process of creating music in the last years of his life. Having resigned from the "forest department", he lost a permanent (albeit small) source of income and was content with odd jobs and insignificant financial support from friends. The last bright event was a trip arranged by his friend, singer D. M. Leonova in July-September 1879 to the south of Russia. During Leonova's tour, Mussorgsky acted as her accompanist, including (and often) performing his own innovative compositions. Concerts of Russian musicians, which were given in Poltava, Elizavetgrad, Nikolaev, Kherson, Odessa, Sevastopol, Rostov-on-Don and other cities, were held with invariable success, which assured the composer (albeit not for long) that his path "to new shores" chosen correctly.

Mussorgsky died in a military hospital, where he was placed after an attack of delirium tremens. In the same place, a few days before his death, Ilya Repin painted the (only lifetime) portrait of the composer. Mussorgsky was buried at the Tikhvin Cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. In 1935-1937, in connection with the reconstruction and redevelopment of the so-called Necropolis of Masters of Arts (architects E. N. Sandler and E. K. Reimers), the area in front of the Lavra was significantly expanded and, accordingly, the line of the Tikhvin cemetery was moved. At the same time, the Soviet authorities moved only tombstones to a new place, while the graves were covered with asphalt, including the grave of Mussorgsky. At the burial place of Modest Petrovich there is now a bus stop.

Of Mussorgsky's orchestral works, the symphonic painting "Night on Bald Mountain" gained worldwide fame. Now practiced is the performance of this work in the edition of N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov, less often in the author's edition.

The vivid coloring, sometimes even the imagery, of the "Pictures at an Exhibition" piano cycle inspired several composers to create orchestral versions; the most famous and most widely represented orchestration of "Pictures" on the concert stage belongs to M. Ravel.

The works of Mussorgsky had a tremendous influence on all subsequent generations of composers. The specific melody, which was seen by the composer as an expressive extension of human speech, and innovative harmony, anticipated many features of 20th-century harmony. The dramaturgy of Mussorgsky's musical and theatrical compositions strongly influenced the work of L. Janachek, I. F. Stravinsky, D. D. Shostakovich, A. Berg (the dramaturgy of his opera "Wozzeck" on the principle of "scene-fragment" is very close to "Boris Godunov" ), O. Messiaen and many others.

List of compositions

Memory

Monument on the grave of Mussorgsky (St. Petersburg, Alexander Nevsky Lavra)

Streets named after Mussorgsky

monuments

Other objects

• Ural State Conservatory in Yekaterinburg since 1939
• Mikhailovsky Theater in St. Petersburg
• Musical school in St. Petersburg.
• Minor planet 1059 Mussorgskia.
• A crater on Mercury is named after Mussorgsky.

Astrakhan Musical College named after M.P. Mussorgsky.

Notes

Astrakhan College of Music

Literature

• Mussorgsky M.P. Letters and documents. Collected and prepared for publication by A. N. Rimsky-Korsakov with the participation of V. D. Komarova-Stasova. Moscow-Leningrad, 1932 (all letters known up to this date, with detailed comments, chronograph of Mussorgsky's life, letters addressed to him)

On March 21, 1839, a boy was born in the family of a poor landowner Peter Mussorgsky, who received the name Modest. His mother, Yulia Ivanovna, doted on her youngest child. Perhaps the reason for this was the death of the first two sons, and she gave all the tenderness to the two surviving boys. Modest spent his childhood on an estate in the Pskov region, among lakes and dense forests. Only the perseverance of the mother and his innate talent helped not to remain uneducated - the mother was engaged in reading, foreign languages ​​​​and music with the children. Although there was only an old piano in the manor house, it was well tuned, and by the age of seven Modest was playing Liszt's works of a small volume on it. And at the age of nine, he performed Field's concerto for the first time.

Pyotr Mussorgsky also loved music and was very pleased with the obvious talent of his son. But could the parents have imagined that their boy would not only become a musician and composer, but would glorify Russia all over the world with his music? Modest was prepared for a completely different fate - after all, all the Mussorgskys came from an ancient noble family and always served in military units. Only Modest's father escaped this by devoting himself to agriculture.

As soon as Modest was ten years old, he and his older brother were taken to St. Petersburg, where the boys were to study at the School of Guards Ensigns, a very privileged military school. After graduating from this school, seventeen-year-old Modest Mussorgsky is determined to serve in the Preobrazhensky Guards Regiment. He had a brilliant military career ahead of him, but quite unexpectedly, the young man resigned and entered the main engineering department. He later worked in the Investigation Division of the Forest Department.

Shortly before making such a surprising decision, one of his comrades in the regiment introduced Modest to the composer Dargomyzhsky. A few minutes were enough for the venerable musician to appreciate the freedom with which Modest played the piano, and most importantly, his unique improvisations and outstanding talent. Dargomyzhsky decided to reinforce his first impression and brought the young man together with Cui and Balakirev. So for Mussorgsky a completely new life, full of music and friends in spirit, began - in Balakirev's circle "The Mighty Handful".

For Mussorgsky, this was real happiness - after all, the art of war did not interest him at all. Another thing is literature, history and philosophy, he always devoted a lot of time to these subjects even at the school. But the main thing for him has always been music. And the character of the future composer was in no way suitable for a military career. Modest Petrovich was distinguished by tolerance for others and democratic actions and views. When the peasant reform was announced in 1861, his kindness to people manifested itself especially brightly - in order to save his own serfs from the hardships of redemption payments, Mussorgsky decided to give up his part of the inheritance in favor of his brother.

The accumulation of new knowledge in the field of music could not but result in a genius period of powerful creative activity. Mussorgsky decided to write a classical opera, but with the obligatory inclusion in it of the embodiment of his addictions to large folk scenes and a central personality - strong and strong-willed. He decided to draw the plot for his opera from Flaubert's novel Salammbo, which sends the reader back to the history of ancient Carthage. Expressive and beautiful musical themes were born in the head of the young composer, and he even recorded some of them. Mass episodes were especially successful for him. But at some point, Mussorgsky suddenly realized that the images already created by his imagination were exceptionally far from the real Carthage described by Flaubert. This discovery made him lose interest in his work and abandon it.

Another of his plans was an opera based on Gogol's Marriage. The idea suggested by Dargomyzhsky corresponded to the utmost with Mussorgsky's character - with his mockery, humor and ability to show complex processes with simple methods. But for that time, the task set - the creation of an opera based on a prose text - looked not only impossible, but simply too revolutionary. Work on The Marriage captured Mussorgsky, and his comrades considered this work a vivid manifestation of the composer's talent in comedy. This talent was especially evident in creating interesting musical characteristics of the characters. And yet it soon became clear that the opera based on The Marriage itself was only a bold experiment, and work on it was interrupted. Mussorgsky, in order to create a serious, real opera, had to follow a completely different path.

Often visiting the house of Glinka's sister, Lyudmila Ivanovna Shestakova, Mussorgsky met Nikolsky Vladimir Vasilyevich. A brilliant literary critic and philologist, a recognized specialist in the field of Russian literature, Nikolsky advised the musician to pay attention to Pushkin's tragedy Boris Godunov. The philologist was no stranger to music and believed that "Boris Godunov" could be an excellent material for creating an opera libretto. The grain thrown by Nikolsky fell on fertile ground - Mussorgsky thought about it and began to read the tragedy. Even while reading, entire fragments of magnificent solemn music began to sound in his head. The composer literally felt with his whole body: an opera based on this material would become a surprisingly voluminous and multifaceted work.

The opera Boris Godunov was fully completed at the end of 1869. And in 1970, Mussorgsky received a reply from Gedeonov, director of the imperial theatres. From the letter, the composer learned that the committee of seven people categorically rejected Boris Godunov. Within a year, Mussorgsky created the second edition of the opera - seven of her paintings turned into four acts with a prologue. In the dedication to this work, Mussorgsky wrote that it was only thanks to his comrades in the Mighty Handful that he was able to complete this difficult work. But even in the second edition, the opera was refused by the theatrical committee. The situation was saved by the prima donna of the Mariinsky Theater Platonova - it was only at her request that the opera Boris Godunov was accepted for production.

Mussorgsky did not find a place for himself in anticipation of the premiere, fearing that society would not accept his opera. But the composer's fears were unfounded. The day of the premiere of "Boris Godunov" turned into a triumph and a true celebration of the composer. The news of the wonderful opera spread through the city with lightning speed, and every single subsequent performance went on to a full house. Mussorgsky could be perfectly happy, but...

The composer did not at all expect an unexpected and exceptionally heavy blow that fell upon him from the critics. "Sankt-Peterburgskiye Vedomosti" in February 1974 published a devastating review of "Boris Godunov" signed by Cui, one of the composer's closest friends. Mussorgsky took his friend's act as a stab in the back.

But both the triumph of the opera and the disappointments gradually faded into the background - life went on. The public's interest in Boris Godunov did not fade away, but critics still considered the opera "wrong" - Mussorgsky's music did not correspond to the romantic stereotypes then accepted in the opera. The transfer of Mussorgsky to the investigative unit of the Forest Department burdened him with a lot of boring work, and there was practically no time to build creative plans. He did not quit, of course, composing music, but he did not find peace.

A particularly dark period in the life of the great composer began. The "Mighty Handful" broke up. And the point was not only in the vile blow of Cui, but also in the overdue internal contradictions among the members of the circle. Mussorgsky himself considered this event a betrayal of the people he loved dearly - a betrayal not to him personally, but to the old ideals that rallied them. Soon one of his friends, the artist Hartmann, died. Following him, the woman passionately and secretly loved by Mussorgsky passed away, whose name the composer did not name anyone - the only memory of love was the "Tombstone Letter", found only after Mussorgsky's death, and numerous works dedicated to this mysterious stranger.

Old friends were replaced by new ones. Mussorgsky closely converges with Count A. A. Golenishchev-Kutuzov, a young poet, and becomes attached to him. Perhaps it was this friendship that kept the composer on the edge of despair and breathed new life into him. The best of Mussorgsky's works of that period were written to the verses of Count Arseny. However, even here the composer was in for a bitter disappointment - after one and a half of such a bright friendship, Golenishchev-Kutuzov got married and moved away from his friends.

Another experience led the composer to guilt, and he even changed outwardly - flabby, stopped taking care of himself, dressed haphazardly ... In addition, troubles began in the service. Mussorgsky was fired more than once, and he constantly experienced financial difficulties. The problems reached the point that once the composer was kicked out of a rented apartment for non-payment. The health of the musical genius was gradually deteriorating.

Nevertheless, it was at that time that Mussorgsky's genius was recognized abroad. Franz Liszt, as they called him then, "the great old man", received from the publisher notes of works by Russian composers and was literally shocked by the talent and novelty of Mussorgsky's works. The stormy enthusiasm of Liszt especially touched the cycle of Mussorgsky's songs under the general title "Children's". In this cycle, the composer vividly and juicy painted the complex and bright world of children's souls.

Mussorgsky himself, despite the terrible conditions of his life, experienced a true creative take-off during these years. Unfortunately, many of the composer's ideas remained unfinished or unfinished by his talent. However, everything created shows that the composer was able to ascend to a new level in his work. The first work to follow "Boris Godunov" was the suite called "Pictures at an Exhibition", the most significant and largest work for the piano. Mussorgsky was able to discover new nuances in the sound of the instrument and reveal its new possibilities. He also thought about working with Pushkin's multifaceted dramaturgy. He saw an opera, the content of which would include the life of an entire country with many episodes and paintings. But Mussorgsky did not find the basis for the libretto of such an opera in literature and decided to write the plot himself.

According to music critics, Mussorgsky's opera Khovanshchina has become a new, higher stage in the development of the composer's musical language. He still considered speech to be the main means of expressing the characters and feelings of people, but the musical arrangement itself now received from him a new, broader and deeper meaning. While working on the opera Khovanshchina, Mussorgsky also composed another opera - The Sorochinskaya Fair based on Gogol's work. In this opera, the composer's love for life and simple human joys is clearly visible, despite the blows of fate and mental suffering. The composer also planned to work on a musical folk drama about the Pugachev uprising. Together with Khovanshchina and Boris Godunov, this opera could form a single trilogy of musical descriptions of Russian history.

In the last years of his life, Mussorgsky left the service, and in order for him not to starve to death, a group of admirers pooled money to pay the composer a small pension. A little money was given by his performances as a pianist-accompanist, and in 1879 Mussorgsky decided to go on a tour of the Crimea and Ukraine with concerts. This journey was for the composer the last bright spot in a series of gray days.

On February 12, 1881, Mussorgsky suffered a cerebral hemorrhage. But before his death, he had to survive several more such blows. Only on March 28, 1881, his body stopped resisting, and the great composer died - at the age of forty-two.

Mussorgsky was interred at the Tikhvin cemetery at the Alexander Nevsky Lavra. Almost a hundred years later, in 1972, his museum was opened in the village of Naumovo, not far from the family estate that has not survived.

Like many great people, fame came to the Russian composer Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky posthumously. Rimsky-Korsakov undertook to complete his Khovanshchina and put the late composer's music archive in order. It was in his edition that the opera "Khovanshchina" was staged, which, like other works of Mussorgsky, went around the whole world.

MODEST PETROVICH MUSSORGSKY

(1839 - 1881)

Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky was born in the village of Karevo, now the Kunyinsky district of the Pskov region. He began to study music at the age of six under the guidance of his mother. The first experiments of musical improvisations, inspired by the fairy tales of a nurse - a serf peasant woman, date back to the same time. Pictures of rural life left a deep mark on Mussorgsky's mind. According to the testimony of his brother Filaret, from his adolescent years he "treated everything folk and peasant with special love."

In 1849, Modest entered the Peter and Paul School in St. Petersburg, and in 1852-56 he studied at the school of guards ensigns and was enrolled in the Preobrazhensky Guards Regiment. At the same time, he studied piano with the pianist Ant. A. Gerke. At the end of the school he was promoted to officer, but two years later he voluntarily retired in order to devote himself entirely to music. Mussorgsky understood that he had not received a systematic musical education and was trying with all his might to make up for lost time, he wanted to make music "as I need it." But the lack of means of subsistence and the impossibility of obtaining them by musical activity forced him to serve as an official, first in the Main Engineering Directorate, then in the Forest Department of the Ministry of State Property and State Control.

The decisive influence on his general musical development was his acquaintance with A.S. Dargomyzhsky, and later with M.A. Balakirev and other members of his circle ("The Mighty Handful"). Mussorgsky began to study musical literature and study composition under the guidance of M.A. Balakirev.

At the turn of the 60s, Mussorgsky experienced a deep ideological turning point, as a result of which he became a staunch supporter of the anti-serfdom ideology. He even renounced his part of the inheritance in favor of his brother, so as not to be the owner of serf souls. He shared many of the views of the Russian revolutionary enlighteners - N. G. Chernyshevsky, N. A. Dobrolyubov. At this time, the composer created several realistic vocal scenes from peasant life, in which the sharp everyday character is combined with a socially accusatory orientation: “Calistrat”, “Lullaby of Eremushka”, “Forgotten”, Commander”, "Seminarian", "Rayok", "On the Dnieper", "Classic", "Flea" and others. All of them are miniature predecessors of future opera paintings. In total, Mussorgsky's legacy includes 67 romances and songs.

Along with the truthful reproduction of the spiritual world of the human personality, Mussorgsky sought to comprehend and convey the collective psychology of the masses. “... In the human masses,” he wrote, “as in an individual, there are always the finest features that elude the grasp, features that have not been touched by anyone ...”

For Mussorgsky, the lively intonation of human speech served as the main means of characterizing the image. He developed the creative principles of Dargomyzhsky, whom he called "a great teacher of truth." The synthesis of song and recitativity is characteristic of Mussorgsky's mature works. The folk song in its “pure form” is often used by the composer as an independent complete whole, as a means of “generalization through the genre”. With the help of various song genres, he managed to create unusually vivid, embossed, vitally convincing images of individual people from the people or the masses of the people, embraced by a single impulse.

The operatic genre occupies a central place in the composer's work. After the unfinished operas "Salambo" (based on the novel by G. Flaubert) and "Marriage" (to the unchanged text by N. V. Gogol), in 1868-69 he created one of his greatest works in terms of scale and design. "Boris Godunov"(based on the tragedy of Pushkin) - a historical opera in which the people act as an active force. Turning to the tragedy of Pushkin, Mussorgsky largely rethought it, brought it closer to the era of the imminent peasant revolution.

Initially, the opera was rejected by the directorate of the imperial theaters, but at the insistence of the singer Yu. F. Platonova, the opera was staged with significant reductions in 1874 at the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg.

The audience's reaction to the performance was mixed. Opinions were divided not only among the conservative public, but even among professional musicians. In particular, the review by Ts. A. Cui, one of the members of the Balakirev circle, was ambiguous in tone and content. Misunderstanding and undivided views caused Mussorgsky a deep moral trauma. But despite this, in 71-72, together with N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov, he made the second edition of the opera.

In the 70s, during the period of intensive work, the opera Khovanshchina (the author's libretto on a historical plot, proposed by V.V. Stasov) became the pinnacle of creative quest. The composer called it a "folk musical drama", emphasizing the dominant role of the people. At the same time, he worked on the lyric-comedy opera Sorochinskaya Fair (based on a story by Gogol). The opera remained unfinished, but the composer's humorous talent was clearly manifested in it.

At this time, chamber vocal cycles were also created: "Children's"(1868-72), "Without the Sun" (1874), "Songs and Dances of Death"(1875-77). Regarding the "Children's" K. Debussy noted that "no one turned to the best that we have, with greater tenderness and depth." In Songs and Dances of Death, the theme of human suffering is expressed in musical images that reach the tragic power of sound.

Mussorgsky's instrumental work is relatively small in scope, but in this area he created bright, deeply original works. Among the outstanding examples of program symphonism is the orchestral picture "Night on Bald Mountain", the plot of which was the old folk beliefs. The nature of her musical images is also connected with folk origins. “The form and character of my work are Russian and original,” the composer wrote, pointing out, in particular, to the typically Russian method of free “scattered variations” he uses. During the life of the author, the picture was not appreciated by his contemporaries, and perhaps that is why Mussorgsky did not realize his talent in instrumental genres. After the death of the author, it was completed and instrumented by N. Rimsky-Korsakov and performed with great success in 1886 in St. Petersburg.

The piano suite is distinguished by the same originality. "Pictures at an Exhibition", in which a gallery of diverse images of the genre, fairy-tale-fantastic and epic plan is given, combined into one multi-colored sound canvas. The timbre richness of the piano sound inspired other musicians to think about the orchestral arrangement of this work. Gained the most popularity "Pictures from an exhibition in the instrumentation of M. Ravel" (1922).

The last years of Mussorgsky were very difficult. Shaky health, financial insecurity prevented him from concentrating on writing. He worked as an accompanist in vocal classes organized by singer D.M. Leonova. In 1879 they made a concert trip to the south, which brought many new and vivid impressions, which were reflected in the piano pieces composed on the Crimean peninsula.

In 1881, Mussorgsky's health deteriorated sharply and his illness, accompanied by severe damage to internal organs and mental impairment, progressed rapidly. The illness demanded that he be transferred from the furnished rooms on Officerskaya Street, as a former military man, to the Nikolaev military hospital. Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky died in one of the oldest military medical institutions in St. Petersburg. He was buried at the cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra.

In 1968, Mussorgsky's Estate Museum was opened in the composer's homeland in the village of Naumovo (now the Kuninsky district of the Pskov region).

In his music, the composer strove to achieve maximum lifelikeness, everyday and psychological concreteness of images. His work, distinguished by a democratic orientation, was imbued with a passionate protest against feudal oppression, love and sympathy for the people and for the desecrated, destitute human person. He openly declared his artistic views and tasks in his Autobiographical Note and letters to Stasov, Golenishchev-Kutuzov and other friends and contemporaries. “To create a living person in live music” - this is how he defined the goal of his work.