Great Composers in Words and Music: Mussorgsky

Album by Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky

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  1. 1.
    Great Composers in Words and Music: Introduction
  2. 2.
    Pictures at an Exhibition: IV. Bydlo (excerpt)
  3. 3.
    Great Composers in Words and Music: Recalling his time spent in Berlin in the 1830s, the Russian literary critic Pavel Annenkov declared: "Every Russian newcomer was wryly asked whether he wished to stay in Berlin and…"
  4. 4.
    Kamarinskaya (excerpt)
  5. 5.
    Great Composers in Words and Music: If Glinka was the fountainhead of Russian music, his offspring - in a musical sense - included Mily Balakirev, César Cui, Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov, Alexander Borodin and Modest Mussorgsky…
  6. 6.
    Intermezzo in modo classico (1867 version for piano) (excerpt)
  7. 7.
    Great Composers in Words and Music: Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky was born on 21 March 1839 into a wealthy, land-owning family in the provincial town of Karevo, situated in the Pskov district in the north-west of Russia…
  8. 8.
    Porte-enseigne Polka (Ensign-Polka) (excerpt)
  9. 9.
    Great Composers in Words and Music: After being commissioned an officer in the elite Preobrazhensky Regiment of the Imperial Guards, Mussorgsky met a group of musicians with whom he would be forever associated: "The Five"…
  10. 10.
    Scherzo in C-sharp minor (excerpt)
  11. 11.
    Great Composers in Words and Music: Another personal crisis appears to have occurred a couple of years later, in the summer of 1860, while Mussorgsky was staying at the rural estate of the Shilovskys, a St. Petersburg couple…
  12. 12.
    Pictures at an Exhibition: VIII. Catacombae (Sepulcrum romanum) (excerpt)
  13. 13.
    Great Composers in Words and Music: Another extract from Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition, this a movement titled Catacombs…
  14. 14.
    Seminarist (The Seminarist) (excerpt)
  15. 15.
    Great Composers in Words and Music: The following year, 1867, Mussorgsky finished an orchestral project that he seems to have had in mind for several years. This was the now-popular tone-poem Night on Bald Mountain, a work that…
  16. 16.
    St. John's Night on Bald Mountain, "A Night on the Bare Mountain" (original version) (excerpt)
  17. 17.
    Great Composers in Words and Music: That Mussorgsky never heard his tone-poem in performance is perhaps not surprising, given the work's immediate reception…
  18. 18.
    Zhenit'ba (The Marriage), Act I, Scene 1: Vot tak nachnyosh etak (Here is how you start)
  19. 19.
    Great Composers in Words and Music: Despite his bold proclamation of his compositional intentions in Marriage, Mussorgsky would go on to call the opera a mere preparatory exercise: "an experiment in dramatic music in prose"…
  20. 20.
    Boris Godunov, Prologue, Scene 1: Introduction (1869 version) (excerpt)
  21. 21.
    Great Composers in Words and Music: A final passage from Boris Godunov furnishes another example of a folk-inspired musical style…
  22. 22.
    Boris Godunov, Act IV, Scene 1: Lejtes', lejtes', slëzy gor'ki (Flow, bitter tears) (1869 version)
  23. 23.
    Great Composers in Words and Music: Here at the end of the opera, Mussorgsky paints a sorrowful picture…
  24. 24.
    Khovanshchina, Act I: Introduction (excerpt)
  25. 25.
    Great Composers in Words and Music: At the time Mussorgsky was working on Khovanshchina, Boris finally premiered at the Mariinsky…
  26. 26.
    Pictures at an Exhibition: Promenade
  27. 27.
    Great Composers in Words and Music: In between the seemingly happenstance occurrences of Mussorgsky's Promenade theme are movements that function as personal reminiscences: not the kind of dispassionate musical observations that…
  28. 28.
    Pictures at an Exhibition: II. Old Castle (excerpt)
  29. 29.
    Great Composers in Words and Music: Yet, as with Boris Godunov, Pictures at an Exhibition features contrasting styles…
  30. 30.
    Pictures at an Exhibition: V. Ballet of the Chickens in their Shells
  31. 31.
    Great Composers in Words and Music: 1874 was a busy year: besides working on the Pictures suite and Sunless songs, Mussorgsky started another musical project, one that - like the opera Khovanshchina - would also be left unfinished…
  32. 32.
    Pesni i plyaski smerti (Songs and Dances of Death): No. 3. Trepak
  33. 33.
    Great Composers in Words and Music: Mussorgsky started work on his Songs and Dances of Death in the first half of 1875, but the cycle was not finished until June 1877…
  34. 34.
    Pesnya Mefistofelya v pogrebke Auerbakha (Mephistopheles's Song in Auerbach's Cellar), "Song of the Flea" (excerpt)
  35. 35.
    Great Composers in Words and Music: Following Mussorgsky's dismissal from government service on 13 January 1880, the composer made further appearances as Leonova's accompanist…
  36. 36.
    Pictures at an Exhibition: X. The Great Gate at Kiev (excerpt)

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