Musorgsky (pronounced MOO-sorgsky) was the son of a well-to-do landowner. The social class into which he was born dictated that he become an officer in the Russian Imperial Guard. Musorgsky duly went to cadet school and joined a regiment after graduation, but he could not long ignore his deep-seated desire to become a composer.

In the meantime, the emancipation of the serfs and other political and economic changes in Russia caused the liquidation of his family estate. For a time Musorgsky tried to help run the family affairs, but in his twenties he was obliged to work at a clerical job. Meanwhile, he experimented with musical composition, struggling to master the technique of an art that he had come to late in life. It was around this time that he joined the circle of Russian nationalist composers that was dubbed the kuchka (the Group; see page 284).

Musorgsky never felt secure in his technique and relied on his skillful kuchka friend, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, to criticize his work. But his intense nationalism formed his vision of what he wanted his work to be — truly Russian music. His masterpiece, the opera Boris Godunov, is based on the story of the sixteenth-century tsar as told by the great Russian poet Alexander Pushkin. It hardly had the success it deserved when it was finally revised and performed in St. Petersburg. Indeed, this and other works by Musorgsky only succeeded some time later, after their orchestration had been touched up (some say glamorized) by Rimsky-Korsakov.

Musorgsky led a rather grim life; his was a personality filled with self-doubt, and his instability was a constant concern to his friends. He became an alcoholic early in life. Musorgsky died of alcoholism and epilepsy in an army hospital at the age of forty-two.

Chief Works: Operas: Boris Godunov and Khovanschina ◼ Orchestral program compositions: Pictures at an Exhibition (originally for piano) and Night on Bald Mountain ◼ Songs, including the very impressive song cycles The Nursery and Songs and Dances of Death

Encore: After Pictures, listen to Night on Bald Mountain and Boris Godunov, Coronation Scene (scene ii).

Image credit: Bettmann/CORBIS.