For the whole world, the Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky glorified the opera Boris Godunov, but during his short creative career he created many other musical works. Who knows, if it were not for his untimely death, perhaps the world would have heard many more wonderful music … Anyway, the legacy left to descendants is still impressive, and the works of Musorgsky are still performed in conservatories around the world.
The rural life, among which he grew up, had a serious influence on the work of the great composer. The first musical instrument that Modest Mussorgsky mastered was the piano. His father, a landowner, encouraged his son to study music, and hired him a teacher. As befits an educated young man of those times, Mussorgsky served in the army and mastered several foreign languages - German, French, Greek and Latin. He was a regular at musical evenings, where he himself often performed several parts – he sang very well.
Mussorgsky left military service when he decided to devote his life to music. His first work as a composer was a play for piano, written and published in 1825. In the process of composing music, Mussorgsky never made sketches and drafts. He preferred to think for a long time about the entire future work as a whole, after which he wrote it all at once. Loud glory in life, he did not achieve. Even close friends criticized his music. Musorgsky’s contemporaries didn’t like even the opera Boris Godunov, which was subsequently triumphantly held at conservatories in Russia and Europe. Especially known was the edition of this opera, authored by Rimsky-Korsakov.
The only lifetime portrait of Mussorgsky was painted by the famous artist Repin. He visited the composer when he was in the hospital, and there he painted his portrait. Nine days after Repin’s visit, Mussorgsky died. The cause of the composer’s death was a fit of delirium tremens. In the last years of his life he became addicted to alcohol because of the rejection of his writings by his contemporaries.
