Musical works by M. Mussorgsky. Biographies, stories, facts, photos Who is Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky

Biography

Musorgsky's father came from the old noble family of the Musorgsky. Until the age of 10, Modest and his older brother Filaret received home education. In 1849, having moved to St. Petersburg, the brothers entered the German school Petrishule. A few years later, without finishing school, Modest entered the School of Guards ensigns, which he graduated in 1856. Then Mussorgsky briefly served in the Life Guards Preobrazhensky Regiment, then in the Main Engineering Directorate, 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 read and spoke fluently in French and German, understood Latin and Greek) and strove to become (as he himself put it) "music." Balakirev forced Mussorgsky to pay serious attention to musical studies. Under his leadership, 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 assessment.

Mussorgsky began work on the large form with the music for Sophocles' tragedy "Oedipus", but did not finish it (one chorus 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 Salammbô (another name - Libyan) and on the plot of Gogol's The Marriage - were also not fully realized. Musorgsky used the music from these sketches in his later works.

The next major plan - the opera "Boris Godunov" based on the tragedy of Alexander Pushkin - Musorgsky brought to the end. The premiere at the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg in the city took place on the material second the version of the opera, in the drama of which the composer was forced to make significant changes, since the repertoire committee of the theater rejected the first the editorial board for "non-stage". Over the next 10 years, "Boris Godunov" was given 15 times and then removed from the repertoire. It was only at the end of November that 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 Collections. By this time, the Bessel and Co. firm in St. Petersburg had released a new clavier "Boris Godunov", in the preface to which Rimsky-Korsakov explains that the reasons that prompted him to undertake this alteration were allegedly "bad texture" and "bad orchestration" 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. In our time, interest in the author's editions of Boris Godunov has revived.

In 1872, Mussorgsky conceived a dramatic opera ("folk musical drama") "Khovanshchina" (according to V.V. Stasov's plan), while working on a comic opera based on the plot of Gogol's "Sorochinskaya Fair". Khovanshchina was almost completely finished in the clavier, but (with the exception of two fragments) it was not instrumented. The first stage version of "Khovanshchina" (including instrumentation) in 1883 was performed by N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov. In the same year, the firm Bessel & Co. published her score and clavier. The first performance of "Khovanshchina" took place in 1886 in St. Petersburg, in the Kononov hall, by the amateur Music and Drama Club. In 1958 D. D. Shostakovich made another edition of "Khovanshchina". Currently, the opera is staged mainly in this version.

For the Sorochinskaya Fair, Mussorgsky composed the first two acts, as well as for the third act, several scenes: Parubok'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 Hopak. 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 tendency which he perceived as a concession to musical conformism, cowardice, even betrayal of the Russian idea. The lack of understanding of his work in the official academic environment, as, for example, in the Mariinsky Theater, then directed by foreigners and compatriots sympathetic to Western opera fashion, was agonizing. But the rejection of his innovation on the part of people whom he considered close friends (Balakirev, Cui, Rimsky-Korsakov, etc.) turned out to be a hundred times more painful:

At the first screening of the 2nd act of Sorochinskaya Fair, I became convinced of the fundamental misunderstanding of the musicians of the crumbling "handful" of Little Russian comedy: such a cold blew from their views and demands that "the heart was chilled," as Archpriest Avvakum says. Nevertheless, I paused, became thoughtful and checked myself more than once. It cannot be that I was wrong around in my aspirations, it cannot be. But it's a shame that with the music of the collapsed "handful" you have to interpret through the "barrier" behind which they were left.

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

These feelings of unrecognition and "misunderstanding" were expressed in a "nervous fever" that intensified in the second half of the 1870s, and as a result - in an 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 a 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 "forestry department", he lost a permanent (albeit small) source of income and was content with odd jobs and little financial support from friends. The last bright event was a trip arranged by his friend, singer D. M. Leonova in July-September 1879 in 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 constant success, assuring the composer (albeit for a short time) that his path was "to new shores." chosen rightly.

Mussorgsky died in a military hospital, where he was placed after an attack of delirium tremens. There, 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 Artists (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 government moved only the gravestones to a new place, while the graves were rolled up with asphalt, including the grave of Mussorgsky. There is a bus stop at the burial place of Modest Petrovich.

From the orchestral works of Mussorgsky, the symphonic picture "Night on Bald Mountain" became world famous. Nowadays, the practice is to perform this work in the edition of N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov, less often in the author's edition.

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

Musorgsky's works had a tremendous impact on all subsequent generations of composers. The specific melody, which was considered by the composer as an expressive extension of human speech, and innovative harmony, anticipated many features of the harmony of the 20th century. The dramaturgy of Musorgsky's musical and theatrical works greatly influenced the work of L. Janacek, I.F. ), O. Messiaen and many others.

List of works

Memory

Monument at 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
• Music 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 (edit)

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 to this date, with detailed comments, chronograph of Mussorgsky's life, letters addressed to him)
• Roerich N.K. Mussorgsky // Artists of Life. - Moscow: International Center of the Roerichs, 1993 .-- 88 p.
• V. V. Stasov article in the "Bulletin of Europe" (May and June).
• V. V. Stasov"Perov and M." ("Russian Starina", 1883, v. XXXVIII, pp. 433-458);
• V. V. Stasov In memory of Mussorgsky // Historical Bulletin, 1886. - T. 23. - No. 3. - P. 644-656. ; him, "In memory of M." (SPb., 1885);
• V. Baskin, “M. P. M. Biographical. sketch "(" Russ. Thought ", 1884, books 9 and 10; separately, M., 1887);
• Kruglikov S. Mussorgsky and his "Boris Godunov" // Artist, 1890, no. 5.
• Trifonov P. Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky // Bulletin of Europe, 1893, December.
• Tumanina N. M.P. Mussorgsky. M. - L., 1939.
• Asafiev B.V., Fav. works, vol. 3, M., 1954;
• M.P. Mussorgsky. On the fiftieth anniversary of his death 1881-1931. Articles and materials. Edited by Y. Keldysh and V. Yakovlev. Moscow: Gosmuzizdat, 1932 (contains valuable articles and a list of works prepared by P. A. Lamm, memoirs of contemporaries, letters, detailed indexes, the first publication of the satirical picture by K. E. Makovsky "The Mighty Handful", etc.)
• Orlova A. Works and days of M.P. Mussorgsky. Chronicle of life and work. - Moscow: State Music Publishing House, 1963. - 702 p. (book format is enlarged; contains a detailed chronograph)
• Shirinyan R.K. Opera drama by Mussorgsky. - M., 1981.
• Mussorgsky M.P. Letters. Moscow, 1984.
• The legacy of M.P. Mussorgsky. Collection of materials (for the release of the Complete Academic Collected Works of M. P. Mussorgsky in 32 volumes). Moscow: Music, 1989 (contains a detailed bibliography and a complete list of Mussorgsky's autographs).
• Kholopov Yu. N. Mussorgsky as a composer of the XX century // Mussorgsky and music of the XX century. Moscow, 1989.
• MP Mussorgsky in the memoirs of his contemporaries. Moscow, 1989.
• Berchenko R. E. Composer direction by Mussorgsky. Moscow: URSS, 2003.
• Vasilyeva A. Russian labyrinth. Biography of M.P. Mussorgsky. ... Pskov: Pskov Regional Printing House, 2008.
• Fedyakin S.R. Mussorgsky // Life of wonderful people. Moscow: Young Guard, 2009.

Links

	Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky in Wikiquote
	in wikisource
	Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky at Wikimedia Commons

• 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 Petrovich Mussorgsky

One of the special members of The Mighty Handful was Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky... An ideological personification of reflections, he became the brightest composer of the whole company. And, in general, it is reasonable.

His father came from an old noble family of Mussorgsky, and up to ten years, Modest and his older brother Filaret received a very decent education. The Mussorgskys had their own history. They, in turn, came from the princes of Smolensk, the Monastyrev family. Just one of the Monastyrevs, Roman Vasilievich Monastyrev, bore the nickname Musorga. It was he who became the ancestor of the Mussorgsky family. In turn, the noble surname of the Sapogovs is also an offshoot of the Musorgskys.

But it was a long time ago. And Modest himself was born on the estate of a not so rich landowner. It happened on March 21, 1839, in the Pskov region.

So, back to his biography. Starting at the age of six, his mother took over the direction of her son's musical education. And then, in 1849, he entered the Peter and Paul School, which is located in St. Petersburg. Three years later, he transferred to the School of Guards Ensigns. At that time, Modest combined his studies at the School with studying with the pianist Gerke. At about the same time, Mussorgsky's first work was published. It was a polka for piano called "Ensign".

Around the years of his studies, that is, 1856-57. he met Stasov and all the ensuing consequences for Russian classical music as well. It was under the guidance of Balakirev that Mussorgsky began his serious studies of composition. Then he decided to devote himself to music.

For this reason, in 1858, he retired from military service. At that time, Mussorgsky wrote many romances, as well as instrumental works, in which his individualism began to manifest even then. For example, his unfinished opera Salammbô, inspired by Flaubert's novel of the same name, was replete with the drama of popular scenes.

For the time described, he was a brilliantly educated young officer. He had a beautiful baritone voice and played the piano beautifully.

Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky - composer from The Mighty Handful

True, in the mid-sixties he became more of a realist artist. In addition, some of his works became especially close to the spirit of the revolutionaries of those times. And in his works such as "Kalistrat", "Eremushka's Lullaby", "Sleep, Sleep, Peasant Son", "Orphan", "Seminarist" he began to express himself especially vividly as a talented writer of everyday life. And what is it worth, staged based on folk tales, "Night on Bald Mountain" ?!

Mussorgsky was not averse to experimental genres. For example, in 1868, he completed work on an opera based on Gogol's "The Marriage". There he diligently transformed lively conversational intonation into music.

During these years, Modest Petrovich seemed to develop. The fact is that one of his greatest works was the opera Boris Godunov. He wrote this opera based on the works of Pushkin, and after some revision it was presented at the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg. What changes have been made? It was simply reduced, and quite significantly.

Then the composer worked on an impressive "folk musical drama", in which he talked about the rifle riots of the late seventeenth century. His inspirers remained the same. For example, the idea of ​​"Khovanshchina" was suggested to him by Stasov.

At the same time, he writes the cycles "Without the Sun", "Songs and Dances of Death" and other works, according to which it becomes clear: the composer has no time for jokes these days. Indeed, the last years of his life Mussorgsky suffered greatly from depression. However, this depression had its own, quite real reasons: his work remained unrecognized, in everyday life and materially, he did not cease to experience difficulties. And besides, he was lonely. In the end, he died a poor man in the Nikolayevsky soldier's hospital, and his unfinished works were completed for him by other composers from "", such as.

How did it happen that he wrote so slowly, unproductively, and in general, what the hell broke his life ?!

The answer is simple: alcohol. He used it to treat his nervous tension, eventually slipping to alcoholism, and somehow the recognition did not come. He thought too much, composed, and then erased everything and wrote down the finished music from scratch. He did not like all kinds of sketches, sketches and drafts. That is why I worked so slowly.

When he resigned from the forestry department, he could only rely on the financial help of his friends, and on his own, some very casual, earnings. And he drank. And I got to the hospital after an attack of delirium tremens.

And time heals all wounds. Now over the grave of one of the greatest Russian composers there is a bus stop. And what we know as the place of his burial is in fact only a transferred monument. Lived alone and died alone. This is the lot of true talent in our country.

Famous works:

• Opera "Boris Godunov" (1869, 2nd edition 1874)
• Opera "Khovanshchina" (1872-1880, not finished; editions: N. A. Rimsky-Korsakov, 1883; D. D. Shostakovich, 1958)
• Opera "The Marriage" (1868, not finished; editions: M. M. Ippolitova-Ivanova, 1931; G. N. Rozhdestvensky, 1985)
• Opera "Sorochinskaya Fair" (1874-1880, not finished; editions: C. A. Cui, 1917; V. Ya. Shebalina, 1931)
• Opera "Salammbo" (unfinished; revision by Zoltan Peshko, 1979)
• Pictures at an Exhibition, a cycle of pieces for piano (1874); orchestration by various composers, including Maurice Ravel, Sergei Gorchakov (1955), Lawrence Leonard, Keith Emerson, etc.
• Songs and Dances of Death, vocal cycle (1877); orchestration: E. V. Denisova, N. S. Korndorf
• "Night on Bald Mountain" (1867), symphonic picture
• "Children's", vocal cycle (1872)
• "Without the Sun", vocal cycle (1874)
• Romances and songs, including "Where are you, little star?" "
• Intermezzo (originally for piano, later orchestrated by the author under the title "Intermezzo in modo classico").

In the family of a poor landowner Pyotr Mussorgsky, on March 21, 1839, a boy was born, named 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 deep forests. Only the stubbornness of the mother and his innate talent helped not to remain uneducated - the mother was engaged with children in reading, foreign languages ​​and music. Although there was only an old piano in the manor house, it was tuned well, and by the age of seven Modest was playing a small volume of Liszt's compositions on it. And at the age of nine he performed the Field Concerto for the first time.

Pyotr Mussorgsky also loved music and was very happy about the obvious talent of his son. But could the parents have assumed that their boy would not only become a musician and composer, but would glorify Russia with his music throughout the world? Modest was prepared for a completely different fate - after all, all the Musorgskys came from an ancient noble family and always served in military units. Only Modest's father escaped this, 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 assigned to serve in the Preobrazhensky Guards Regiment. He had a brilliant military career, but quite unexpectedly the young man resigned and entered the main engineering department. He later worked in the investigation department of the Forestry Department.

Shortly before the adoption of the decision that surprised those around him, one of his regiment comrades 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 in the least. Another thing is literature, history and philosophy; he always devoted a lot of time to these subjects while still in school. But the main thing for him has always been music. And the character of the future composer was in no way suited for a military career. Modest Petrovich was distinguished by tolerance towards others and democratic actions and views. When the peasant reform was announced in 1861, his kindness to people was manifested especially vividly - in order to rid his own serfs from the burdens of redemption payments, Mussorgsky decided to abandon his part of the inheritance in favor of his brother.

The genius's accumulation of new knowledge in the field of music could not but result in a period of powerful creative activity. Mussorgsky decided to write a classical opera, but with the obligatory inclusion in it of the embodiment of his predilections for large folk scenes and a central personality - strong and strong-willed. He decided to draw the plot for his opera from Flaubert's novel Salammbeau, 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 wrote down some of what he had invented. Mass episodes were especially successful for him. But at some point Mussorgsky suddenly realized that the images already created by his imagination were extremely far from the real one described by Flaubert of Carthage. This discovery made him lose interest in his work and abandon it.

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

Frequently visiting the house of Glinka's sister, Lyudmila Ivanovna Shestakova, Mussorgsky met Vladimir Vasilyevich Nikolsky. 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 become an excellent material for creating an opera libretto. The grain thrown by Nikolsky fell on fertile soil - Mussorgsky thought about it and began to read the tragedy. While reading, whole fragments of magnificent solemn music began to sound in his head. The composer literally felt with his whole body that an opera based on this material would become an amazingly voluminous and multifaceted work.

The opera Boris Godunov was completed at the end of 1869. And in 1970 Mussorgsky received an answer from Gedeonov, the director of the imperial theaters. From the letter, the composer learned that a committee of seven people categorically rejected Boris Godunov. Within a year, Mussorgsky created a second version of the opera - seven of her paintings turned into four acts with a prologue. In a 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 complex work. But in the second edition, the opera was refused by the theater committee. The prima donna of the Mariinsky Theater, Platonova, saved the day - it was only at her request that the opera Boris Godunov was accepted for production.

Mussorgsky did not find a place for himself while awaiting the premiere, fearing that his opera would not be accepted by society. But the composer's fears were in vain. The day of the premiere of Boris Godunov turned into a triumph and a true triumph for the composer. The news of the wonderful opera spread throughout the city with lightning speed, and every single subsequent performance was sold out. Mussorgsky could have been perfectly happy, but ...

The composer did not at all expect an unexpected and extremely hard blow that fell on him from the critics. In February 1974, Sankt-Peterburgskie Vedomosti 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 adopted at that time in the opera. Mussorgsky's transfer to the investigative part of the Forestry Department burdened him with a lot of boring work, and there was practically no time to make creative plans. He did not give up, of course, composing music, but he did not find reassurance.

A particularly dark period in the life of the great composer began. The "Mighty Handful" disintegrated. And the matter was not only in Cui's dastardly blow, but also in the ripening internal contradictions among the members of the circle. Mussorgsky himself considered this event a betrayal of the people dearly loved by him - a betrayal not to him personally, but to the old ideals that had united them. Soon one of his friends, the artist Hartmann, died. After him, a woman who was ardently and secretly beloved by Mussorgsky passed away, whose name the composer did not name to anyone - only the "Funeral Letter", found only after Mussorgsky's death, and numerous works dedicated to this mysterious stranger became the memory of love.

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 brink of despair and breathed new life into him. The best of Mussorgsky's works of that period were written on 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 left his friends.

Another experience led the composer to guilt, and he even changed outwardly - flabby, stopped taking care of himself, dressed anyhow ... In addition, troubles began in the service. Mussorgsky was fired more than once, and he constantly experienced financial difficulties. Problems reached the point that one day 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 he was then called, "the great elder", received from the publisher the sheet music of the works of Russian composers and was literally shocked by the talent and novelty of Musorgsky's works. Liszt's stormy delight particularly touched the cycle of Mussorgsky's songs under the general title "Children's". In this cycle, the composer has brightly and richly painted the difficult and light 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 were left unfinished or unrefined by his talent. However, everything created shows that the composer was able to ascend to a new level in his work. The first piece that followed Boris Godunov was a suite entitled Pictures at an Exhibition, the most significant and largest piece for a grand 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 the multifaceted Pushkin's drama. He saw an opera, the content of which would include the life of an entire country with many episodes and pictures. But Mussorgsky did not find the basis for the libretto of such an opera in literature and decided to write the plot on his own.

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 the main means for expressing the characters and feelings of people, but the musical arrangement itself has now received a new, wider and deeper meaning for him. While working on the opera "Khovanshchina", Mussorgsky also composed another opera - "Sorochinskaya Fair" based on the work of Gogol. This opera clearly shows the composer's love for life and simple human joys, despite the blows of fate and mental suffering. The composer also intended to work on a musical folk drama about the Pugachev uprising. Together with "Khovanshchina" and "Boris Godunov", this opera could constitute a single trilogy of musical description 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 jointly paid 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 Crimea and Ukraine with concerts. This journey became 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 surviving family estate.

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

Life, wherever it affects; true, no matter how salty, bold, sincere speech to people ... - this is my leaven, this is what I want and this is what I would be afraid to miss.
From a letter from M. Musorgsky to V. Stasov dated August 7, 1875

What a vast, rich world of art, if a person is taken as the goal!
From a letter by M. Musorgsky to A. Golenishchev-Kutuzov dated August 17, 1875

Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky is one of the most daring innovators of the 19th century, a brilliant composer who was far ahead of his time and had a huge impact on the development of Russian and European musical art. He lived in an era of the highest spiritual uplift, profound social shifts; it was a time when Russian public life actively contributed to the awakening of national consciousness among artists, when one after another appeared works from which breathed with freshness, novelty and, most importantly, amazing real truth and poetry of real Russian life(I. Repin).

Among his contemporaries, Mussorgsky was the most loyal to democratic ideals, uncompromising in serving the truth of life, no matter how salty, and so obsessed with bold ideas that even like-minded friends were often puzzled by the radical nature of his artistic quest and did not always approve of them. Mussorgsky spent his childhood in a landlord estate in an atmosphere of patriarchal peasant life and subsequently wrote in Autobiographical note, what exactly acquaintance with the spirit of Russian folk life was the main impulse of musical improvisation ... And not just improvisation. Brother Filaret later recalled: In adolescence and adolescence and already in adulthood(Mussorgsky. - O. A.) always treated everything national and peasant with special love, considered the Russian peasant to be a real person.

The boy's musical talent was discovered early. In the seventh year, studying under the guidance of his mother, he already played the simple compositions of F. Liszt on the piano. However, no one in the family seriously thought about his musical future. According to family tradition, in 1849 he was taken to St. Petersburg: first to the Peter and Paul School, then transferred to the School of Guards ensigns. It was luxury casemate where taught military ballet, and following the infamous circular must obey and keep reasoning to oneself, knocked out in every possible way crap out of my head by encouraging tacitly frivolous pastime. Mussorgsky's spiritual maturation in this situation proceeded in a very contradictory manner. He excelled in military sciences, for which was honored with especially kind attention ... by the emperor; was a welcome participant in parties where he played polkas and squares all night long. But at the same time, an inner craving for serious development prompted him to study foreign languages, history, literature, art, take piano lessons from the famous teacher A. Gerke, attend opera performances, despite the discontent of the military commanders.

In 1856, after graduating from the School, Mussorgsky was enlisted as an officer in the Preobrazhensky Guards Regiment. Before him was the prospect of a brilliant military career. However, the acquaintance in the winter of 1856/57 with A. Dargomyzhsky, Ts. Cui, M. Balakirev opened other ways, and a gradually brewing spiritual turning point came. The composer himself wrote about this: Rapprochement ... with a talented circle of musicians, constant conversations and established strong ties with a wide circle of Russian scientists and writers, such as Vlad. Lamansky, Turgenev, Kostomarov, Grigorovich, Kavelin, Pisemsky, Shevchenko and others, especially excited the brain activity of the young composer and gave her a serious, strictly scientific direction.

On May 1, 1858, Mussorgsky submitted his resignation letter. Despite the persuasion of friends and family, he broke with military service so that nothing would distract him from his musical studies. Mussorgsky is overwhelmed terrible, irresistible desire for omniscience... He studies the history of the development of musical art, plays in four hands with Balakirev many works by L. Beethoven, R. Schumann, F. Schubert, F. Liszt, G. Berlioz, reads a lot, reflects. All this was accompanied by breakdowns, nervous crises, but in the painful overcoming of doubts, creative forces were strengthened, an original artistic individuality was forged, and an ideological position was formed. Mussorgsky is increasingly attracted by the life of the common people. How many fresh sides untouched by art are teeming in Russian nature, oh, how many! - he writes in one of the letters.

Musorgsky's creative activity began violently. Work went overwhelm, each piece opened up new horizons, even if it was not finished. So the operas remained unfinished King Oedipus and Salammbô, where for the first time the composer tried to embody the most complex interweaving of the fate of the people and a strong domineering personality. The unfinished opera played an extremely important role for Mussorgsky's work Marriage(Act 1 of 1868), in which, under the influence of Dargomyzhsky's opera Stone guest he used the almost unchanged text of the play by N. Gogol, setting himself the task of musical reproduction human speech in all its subtle bends... Fascinated by the idea of ​​programmaticity, Mussorgsky creates, like his brothers in To the mighty handful, a number of symphonic works, among which - 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, people humiliated and insulted: Kalistrat, Hopak, Svetik Savishna, Lullaby to Eremushka, Orphan, Pick mushrooms... Mussorgsky's amazing ability to accurately and accurately recreate living nature in music ( I'll notice some of the peoples, and then, on occasion, and emboss), reproduce a vividly characteristic speech, give the plot a stage visibility. And most importantly, the songs are imbued with such a force of compassion for a disadvantaged person that in each of them an everyday fact rises to the level of tragic generalization, to socially accusatory pathos. It's no coincidence that the song Seminarian was banned by the censorship!

The pinnacle of Mussorgsky's creativity in the 60s. became an opera Boris Godunov(on the plot of the drama by A. Pushkin). Mussorgsky began writing it in 1868 and in the first edition (without the Polish act) presented it in the summer of 1870 to the Directorate of the Imperial Theaters, which rejected the opera, allegedly due to the lack of a female part and the complexity of the recitative. After revision (one of the results of which was the famous scene near Kromy), in 1873, with the assistance of the singer Y. Platonova, 3 scenes from the opera were staged, and on February 8, 1874 - the entire opera (albeit with large cuts). The democratic-minded public greeted Mussorgsky's new work with true enthusiasm. However, the further fate of the opera was difficult, because this work in the most decisive way destroyed the usual ideas about the opera performance. Everything here was new: the acute social idea of ​​the irreconcilability of the interests of the people and the tsarist power, and the depth of disclosure of passions and characters, and the psychological complexity of the image of the tsar-infanticide. The musical language turned out to be unusual, about which Mussorgsky himself wrote: By working on a human dialect, I got to the melody created by this dialect, I got to the embodiment of the recitative in the melody.

Opera Boris Godunov- the first example of a folk musical drama, where the Russian people appeared as a force that decisively influences the course of history. At the same time, the people are shown in many ways: the mass, animated by a single idea, and a gallery of colorful, striking in their life authenticity folk characters. The historical plot gave Mussorgsky the opportunity to trace development of the people's spiritual life, comprehend past in the present, to pose many problems - ethical, psychological, social. The composer shows the tragic doom of popular movements and their historical necessity. He has a grandiose plan for an opera trilogy dedicated to the fate of the Russian people at critical, turning points in history. During the period of work on Boris Godunov he is hatching a plan Khovanshchyna and soon begins to collect materials for Pugachev region... All this was carried out with the active participation of V. Stasov, who in the 70s. became close to Mussorgsky and was one of the few who truly understood the seriousness of the composer's creative intentions. I devote to you the entire period of my life when "Khovanshchina" will be created ...- Mussorgsky wrote to Stasov on July 15, 1872.

Work on Khovanshchina proceeded difficult - Mussorgsky turned to material that went far beyond the scope of an opera performance. However, he wrote intensively ( Work is in full swing!), albeit with long interruptions due to many reasons. At this time, Mussorgsky was going through the collapse Balakirevsky mug, cooling of relations with Cui and Rimsky-Korsakov, Balakirev's departure from musical and social activities. The bureaucratic service (since 1868 Mussorgsky was an official of the Forestry Department of the Ministry of State Property) left only evening and night hours for composing music, and this led to severe overwork and more and more prolonged depression. However, in spite of everything, the creative power of the composer during this period is striking in strength and richness of artistic ideas. Parallel to the tragic Khovanshchina since 1875 Mussorgsky has been working on a comic opera Sorochinskaya fair(according to Gogol). It's good as a creative economy., - wrote Mussorgsky. - Two pudoviks: "Boris" and "Khovanshchina" side by side can crush... 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 infinitely grateful for his participation and support: No one warmed me hotter than you in all respects ... no one showed me the path more clearly....

The idea to write a loop Pictures at an Exhibition was inspired by the posthumous exhibition of works by the artist V. Hartmann in February 1874. He was a close friend of Mussorgsky, and his sudden death deeply shocked the composer. The work proceeded violently, intensively: Sounds and thoughts hung in the air, I swallow and overeat, barely having time to scratch on paper... And in parallel, one after the other, 3 vocal cycles appear: Children(1872, on his own poems), No sun(1874) and Songs and dances of death(1875-77 - both at the station of A. Golenishchev-Kutuzov). They become the result of all the chamber-vocal creativity of the composer.

Severely ill, severely suffering from want, loneliness, non-recognition, Mussorgsky stubbornly insists that 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 big concert trip to the south of Russia and Ukraine, performed the music of Glinka, Kuchkists, Schubert, Chopin, Liszt, Schumann, excerpts from his opera Sorochinskaya fair and writes significant words: Life calls for a new musical work, a broad musical work ... to new shores while the boundless art!

Fate decreed otherwise. Mussorgsky's health deteriorated sharply. In February 1881 there was a stroke. Mussorgsky was placed in the Nikolaev military-land hospital, where he died, and did not have time to complete Khovanshchin and Sorochinskaya fair.

The entire archive of the composer after his death fell to Rimsky-Korsakov. He finished Khovanshchin, made a new edition Boris Godunov and achieved their staging at the imperial opera stage. It seems to me that my name is even Modest Petrovich, and not Nikolai Andreevich, - wrote Rimsky-Korsakov to his friend. Sorochinskaya fair completed by A. Lyadov.

The fate of the composer is dramatic, the fate of his creative heritage is complex, but the glory of Mussorgsky is immortal, for music was for him both a feeling and a thought about the beloved Russian people - a song about him... (B. Asafiev).

O. Averyanova

The son of a landowner. Having begun his military career, he continues to study music in St. Petersburg, the first lessons of which he received back in Karevo, and becomes an excellent pianist and a good singer. Communicates with Dargomyzhsky and Balakirev; retired in 1858; the emancipation of the peasants in 1861 is reflected in his financial well-being. In 1863, while serving in the Forestry Department, he became a member of the "Mighty Handful". In 1868 he entered the service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, after spending three years in his brother's estate in Minkino for the sake of improving his health. Between 1869 and 1874 he worked on various editions of Boris Godunov. Having undermined the already poor health due to a painful addiction to alcohol, he composes intermittently. Lives with various friends, in 1874 - with Count Golenishchev-Kutuzov (the author of poems set by Musorgsky to music, for example, in the cycle "Songs and Dances of Death"). In 1879 he made a very successful tour together with the singer Daria Leonova.

The years when the concept of Boris Godunov appeared and when this opera was created are fundamental for Russian culture. At this time, such writers as Dostoevsky and Tolstoy, and younger, like Chekhov, Itinerant artists, asserted the priority of content over form in their realistic art, which embodied the poverty of the people, drunkenness of priests, and police brutality. Vereshchagin created true paintings dedicated to the Russian-Japanese war, and in "The Apotheosis of War" he dedicated a pyramid of skulls to all the conquerors of the past, present and future; the great portrait painter Repin also turned to landscape and historical painting. As for music, the most characteristic phenomenon at this time was the "Mighty Handful", which set itself the goal of increasing the importance of the national school, using folk legends to create a romanticized picture of the past. In the minds of Mussorgsky, the national school appeared as something ancient, truly archaic, immovable, including eternal folk values, almost shrines that could be found in the Orthodox religion, in folk choral singing, and finally, in that language that still retains the mighty sonority of distant origins. Here are some of his thoughts, expressed between 1872 and 1880 in letters to Stasov: “It’s not the first time to pick chernozem, but to poke not on fertilized, but in raw materials, you want to not get to know the people, but longs for fraternization ... The black earth power will manifest itself when you pick it up to the bottom ... "; “An artistic depiction of beauty alone, in its material sense, is crude childishness - the childhood age of art. The finest features of nature human and human masses, annoying poking around in these little-known countries and their conquest is the real vocation of the artist. " The composer's vocation constantly prompted his highly sensitive, rebellious soul to strive for something new, for discoveries, which led to a continuous alternation of creative ups and downs, which were associated with interruptions in activity or its spread in too many directions. “To such an extent I become strict with myself,” Mussorgsky writes to Stasov, “speculatively, and the stricter I become, the more dissolute I become.<...>There is no mood for small things; however, the writing of small plays is a rest when thinking about large creatures. And for me, thinking about large creatures becomes a rest ... that's how everything goes into a rollover - sheer dissipation. "

Born on March 21, 1839 on the estate of his father, a poor landowner, in the village of Karevo, Toropetsky district (now the Kunyinsky district) in the Pskov region, died on March 28, 1881 in St. Petersburg), Russian composer, member of the Mighty Handful. He spent his childhood at the estate of his parents; in his autobiography Mussorgsky wrote: "... acquaintance with the spirit of folk life was the main impulse of musical improvisation before the beginning of acquaintance with even the most elementary rules of playing the piano." At the age of six, Mussorgsky began to study music under the guidance of his mother. In 1849 he entered the Peter and Paul School in St. Petersburg, in 1852-56 he studied at the School of Guards ensigns. At the same time he took music lessons from the pianist A. A. Gerke. In 1852 Mussorgsky's first work was published - the polka for piano "Ensign". In 1856-57 he met A.S.Dargomyzhsky, V.V. Stasov and M.A. Balakirev, who had a profound influence on his general and musical development. Under the leadership of Balakirev, Mussorgsky began to seriously study composition; deciding to devote himself to music, in 1858 he left military service. In the late 50s - early 60s. Mussorgsky wrote a number of romances and instrumental works, in which the peculiar features of his creative individuality have already appeared. In 1863-66 he worked on the opera Salammbô (based on the novel of the same name by G. Flaubert, not finished), which is notable for the drama of popular scenes. By the mid 60s. the worldview of Mussorgsky as a realist artist, close to the ideas of the revolutionary democrats, is taking shape. Referring to actual, socially acute themes from folk life, he created songs and romances to the words of N. A. Nekrasov, T. G. Shevchenko, A. N. Ostrovsky and to his own texts ("Kalistrat", "Eremushki's Lullaby", " Sleep, sleep, peasant son "," Orphan "," Seminarist ", etc.), in which his gift of everyday life was manifested, the ability to create vividly characteristic human images. The symphonic picture "Night on Bald Mountain" (1867), based on folk tales and legends, is distinguished by the richness and richness of sound colors. A bold experiment was Mussorgsky's unfinished opera "The Marriage" (to the unaltered text of the comedy by N. V. Gogol, 1868), the vocal parts of which are based on the direct transformation of the intonations of lively colloquial speech.

All these works prepared Mussorgsky for the creation of one of his greatest creations - the opera "Boris Godunov" (based on the tragedy of Alexander Pushkin). The first version of the opera (1869) was not accepted for production by the management of the imperial theaters. After the revision, Boris Godunov was staged at the St. Petersburg Mariinsky Theater (1874), but with great reductions. In the 70s. Mussorgsky worked on a grandiose in design "folk musical drama" from the era of the Streltsy riots of the late 17th century. "Khovanshchina" (libretto by M., begun in 1872), the idea of ​​which was suggested to him by V.V. Stasov, and the comic opera "Sorochinskaya Fair" (based on the story of Gogol, 1874-80). At the same time he created the vocal cycles Without the Sun (1874), Songs and Dances of Death (1875-77), the piano suite Pictures at an Exhibition (1874), etc. creativity, loneliness, household and material difficulties. He died in poverty in the Nikolayevsky soldier's hospital. The unfinished Khovanshchina was completed after his death by Rimsky-Korsakov, A. Lyadov, Ts. A. Cui and others worked on the Sorochinskaya Fair. In 1896 Rimsky-Korsakov made a new version of Boris Godunov. In Soviet times, Dmitry Shostakovich re-edited and orchestrated Boris Godunov and Khovanshchina (1959). An independent version of the completion of the Sorochinskaya Yarmarka belongs to V. Ya. Shebalin (1930).

The great humanist, democrat and lover of truth, Mussorgsky strove to actively serve the people with his work. He repulsed acute social conflicts with great force, created powerful, dramatic images of a people who rebelled and fought for their rights. At the same time, Mussorgsky was a sensitive psychologist, an expert on the human soul. In the musical dramas Boris Godunov and Khovanshchina, unusually dynamic, colorful mass folk scenes are combined with a variety of individual characteristics, psychological depth and complexity of individual images. In stories from the domestic past, Mussorgsky was looking for an answer to the burning questions of our time. “The past in the present is my task,” he wrote to Stasov while working on Khovanshchina. Mussorgsky also showed himself as a genius playwright in works of small form. Some of his songs are similar to small dramatic scenes, in the center of which is a living and complete human image. Listening to the intonation of colloquial speech and the melody of Russian folk songs, Mussorgsky created a deeply original, expressive musical language, distinguished by an acute realistic characteristic, subtlety and variety of psychological shades. His work had a great influence on many composers: S. S. Prokofiev, D. D. Shostakovich, L. Janacek, K. Debussy and others.