Modest Mussorgsky
Romantic · 1839–1881
Modest Mussorgsky never held a musical job. Born on his family's estate in rural Russia in 1839, he was trained as an army officer, resigned his commission young, and spent most of his adult life as a low-level government clerk in St. Petersburg, composing around office hours. He belonged to the Mighty Handful, the circle of five composers determined to build music from Russian speech, song, and history.
His opera Boris Godunov, about a tsar consumed by guilt, is his largest achievement. Pictures at an Exhibition, a piano suite that walks through a memorial show of paintings by his friend Viktor Hartmann, is his most heard, usually in the orchestral version Ravel made decades later. Alcohol wrecked his health; he died at 42, leaving much unfinished for friends like Rimsky-Korsakov to complete.
Start with Pictures at an Exhibition, then Night on Bald Mountain, his orchestral picture of a witches' gathering.
64 works in the catalog, across 5 genres. Log what you listen to with Opus, the classical music journal for iPhone.
Chamber
- Gopak
- Ukranian Dance, for violin and piano
- Une Larme, for cello and piano
Keyboard
- Pictures at an Exhibition
- A Children's Prank, scherzo
- Albumleaf: Meditation
- A Tear
- Childhood Memories
- Duma on a theme of V. A. Loginov, for piano
- Impromptu passionné
- Intermezzo in modo classico
- In the Village, quasi fantasia
- Jeux d'enfants-les quatre coins, for piano
- Meditation, 'Razdumye', for piano
- On the Southern Shore of the Crimea
- Porte-enseigne Polka
- Rêverie
- Scherzo in B flat major
- Scherzo in C sharp minor, for piano
- Shveya, for piano
- Sonata in C major, for piano 4-hands
- Souvenir d'enfance
- The Seamstress
- Une larme, for piano
Orchestral
- Night on Bald Mountain
- Dawn on the Moscow River, prelude
- Festive March
- Golitsyn's Jouney
- Intermezzo in modo classico in B minor
Stage
- Boris Godunov Opera
- Khovanshchina Opera
- Khovanshchina Opera
- Khovanshchina
- Khovanshchina Opera
- Khovanshchina Opera
- Oedipus in Athens
- Salammbô
- Sorochintsï Fair
Vocal
- Angel vopiyashe, for a cappella chorus
- A Society Tale: The Goat
- At Daddy's Gate, for chorus
- Bez solntsa
- Detskaya
- Eh, My Boundless Freedom, for chorus
- Gde tï, zvezdochka?
- Gopak
- Iz slyoz moikh
- Joshua, for chorus
- Klassik
- Kolïbel'naya Eryomushki
- Kolïbel'naya pesnya
- Mephistopheles' Song of the Flea
- Na Dnepre
- Noch
- Ozornik
- Seminarist
- Softly the Spirit Flew up to Heaven
- Songs and Dances of Death Song cycle
- Sorochintsï Fair: Dream of the Peasant Gritsko, for chorus and orchestra
- Strekotun'ya beloboka
- The Destruction of Sennacherib, for chorus
- The Street Urchin
- Yarema's Song
- Yevreyskaya pesnya
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