Project

In
MAPEH 112
Submitted by:

JUNEL CHRISTIAN D. SILDO

BSE-MAPEH
Submitted to:

HERBERT FABILLAR
Instructor

Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky

Date/Place of
21 March 1839 in Karevo, Pskov district
Birth:
Personality: A member of 'The Mighty Handful'.
Mussorgsky never received any formal
musical education during his childhood. After
he graduated from the Cadet School of the
Imperial Guards in 1856, he joined the
Preobrazhensky Imperial Life Guards. Later,
he resigned and was then appointed as a clerk
in the civil service. However, during his army
career, he indefatigably worked out his attempt
in producing masterpieces despite his lack of
musical knowledge.
Mussorgsky's life was generally unorganized
and miserable. Being an incurable alcoholic,
he found his job loathsome and tedious therefore often sank into deep depression and
degradation. His health was erratic and
occasionally, he sufferred from mental
disorders that were sadly inimical to his
concentration in composing. However, it is
undubitably not a hindrance to him. Some
considered that his miserable life and drinking
habit might have culminated in producing a
handful of masterpieces.
In conclusion, Mussorgsky is now considered
as one of the most single-minded Russian
composers in 19th Century.

Piano-Playing Mussorgsky had already shown musical talents

Style: during his early childhood. Before he learned
the basics in piano, he immersed himself at the
piano improvising the music of Russian folk
tunes that he hopelessly adored. His mother
recognized his musical talents and began to
teach him. Consequently, he improved
tremendously to the extent that he mastered
some of Liszt's piano pieces and performed a
piano concerto by John Field in public at the
age of 9.
Since then, Mussorgsky had piano lessons
with Anton Herke who was an outstanding
pianist and a pupil of Henselt. However,
Mussorgsky had no pretensions as a piano
virtuoso, and he was described by Borodin as
'an elegant piano dilettante'.
Music: Mussorgsky's music was generally
nationalistic and individual. He was well
acquianted with Russian folksongs and the life
of peasants during his happy childhood. In
1857, he met Dargomyzhsky, a well-known
composer and a friend of Glinka's, who later
introduced him to several Russian composers
like Cui, Balakirev, Stasov and others. He was
so impressed by their nationalistic music,
especially Balakirev who taught him in
composition, that he devote himself entirely to
Russian art. This eventually consolidated his
ability to compose music in his strikingly
personal style.
His early works were neither characteristic of
him nor nationalistic, but an emanation of
Romantic expressions and lyricism. Some of
his early piano works reflected his
reminiscenes of his happy childhood such as
'Souvenir d'enfance', 'A Child's Scherzo',
'Nanny and Me' etc. Besides that, his

'Impromptu passionn' is one of the most

exquisite pieces ever composed, with a tinge
of Schumannesque texture. Ironically, he no
longer composed any music in this style.
Mussorgsky's 'Pictures at the Exhibition' is
arguably the epitome of all programmatic
piano music in 19th Century. It was inspired
by the paintings of his friend Victor Hartmann.
It evinces Mussorgsky's fertile imaginations
and is replete with the strikingly original and
somewhat exotic melodies, in such a way that
shows an affinity with Russian folksongs.
Meanwhile, he also composed an overtly
colourful, gripping orchestral piece - 'Night on
a Bare Mountain'. It is programmatic music
which depicts that all ghouls and devils are
called up for revelries upon the mountain.
It is the operas and lieder that reveal his
personality and his art of music. Unlike his
early Romantic works, Mussorgsky eschewed
aesthetic value in his late works, but
endeavoured to reveal the life of Russians,
panoramic scenery of villages, and all events
occurred around him. Somehow it showed
realism, as one of the trademarks found in
Shostakovich's music. Therefore,
Mussorgsky's operas and lieder are purely
nationalistic and very characteristic of the
composer himself i.e. sardonic, tender,
fortright and outrageous.