Modest Mussorgsky

By Olga Elmanovich
Russia, Volgograd

Unfortunately, many famous composers are forgotten now. The case is that modern generation don't want to listen to classic music. They find it old-fashioned and useless. But I think that it's just the matter of age. You should grow to the age of understanding such music. Of course it's useless to listen to it, if you don't want to. As for me, listening to classic music is a way of relaxation. While listening, I think about my life, about my mistakes and little victories, about my past and future. I find answers in this music. Modest Mussorgsky is the kind of composer, that I really like.

Modest was born on the 9th of March in 1839 in the village near Pskov city. His father was a nobleman. He remembered about the place of his childhood as about that place, where first musical improvisation came to his head. At that time he couldn't play the piano at all, he was about five. His mother started to learn Modest to play the to play the piano, when the boy was six. Everybody understood, that Modest was very talented.
And a year later he could play some piano works of List (a composer). Modest's talent pleased not only his mother, but his father too. But no one in the family could even imagine, that Mussorgsky would become a professional musician. So Modest and his brother in 1852 entered the school of ensigns in St.-Petersburg. He still liked music and studied it with help of his teacher � a famous pianist, named Gerk. At that period Mussorgsky wrote his first work "An ensign".

In 1856 Modest met Dargomyjsky ( a very popular composer of that time). So he started to communicate with him and some other composers. It was very important for Mussorgsky to find people, who would share his interests. Very soon Mussorgsky understood, that music is not only a kind of joy for him. He wanted to become a real professional, so he left his active service and devote his life to music.


It's not a secret, that till 1861 year his life was not very difficult. Modest had enough money, but then serfdom was canceled. This situation influenced on many noblemen. The majority of them were ranted. Modest hardly could tie up the loose ends. But he kept on working. In 1869 the composer finished the first version of his opera "Boris Godunov" (Russian king). He worked on it a lot, and it really pleased him, he lived for each note of this opera. But the director of Mariinsky theatre refused to show it to the public. Now, people believe, that he did it, because was a bit afraid of music, which was very modern for that times. So Mussorgsky made a new version of it and in the 1874 people heard it. The huge success came to this opera many years later, after Modest's death in 1908, when it was produced in Paris and submitted Europe first, and then the whole world. "Boris Godunov" was his most successful work. Till our days we enjoy it in Russian Russia and European theatres.

Last years of Mussorgsky's life were very difficult. He had no money, he wasn't needed, so he started to drink. His friends tried to help him, but in vane. He didn't want to live any more. He died in 1881 in military hospital in Nikolaevsk. No one cared about his death, accept his close friends. No one cared, that he was a genius, while he was alive. Long after it, people understood, that Modest was a great person, that his works are true masterpieces.

Unfortunately, such stories, happened very often with great people. They often are estimated after death. But I really think, that older generation will always appreciate Mussorgsky!


(TENAN CONDUCTS MUSSORGSKY TABLEAUX D'UNE EXPOSITION)