Portraits of Mussorgsky - the stages of the life of the great composer

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

Portraits of Mussorgsky were not often made. This is not Rembrandt, who annually peered into himself and watched how he was changing. Mussorgsky's portraits, as a rule, reflect only the external, but we are interested in his inner world, which allowed him to create great musical works.

Early years

Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky was the son of not a rich, but well-born landowner. He was born in the northern Pskov region in 1839. Two older brothers died early, and mother Yulia Ivanovna gave all her tenderness and love to her youngest son.

Modest Petrovich kept intimacy with her all his life, and later her death was a heavy blow for him. Maman was the first to teach him to play the piano. No portraits of Mussorgsky have been preserved from this time. But his future was decided long ago: the boy will be a military man.

Petersburg

After graduating from the school of guard ensigns, Modest Mussorgsky began his service in the Preobrazhensky Guards Regiment. In the photo on the left is an officer of the Life Guards. This is 1856. He is 17. Young and well-behaved, modest, almost a child, a young man who has not yet determined his life. It feels ready to serve, follow duty, self-control and willpower.

Next to the right is a photograph of him with his brother in 1858. Inner freedom, a strict look, as if the future composer decides something for himself. Rationality, introspection is present in every trait.

By this time, Modest Mussorgsky is a gifted musician. He is also a very educated person: he speaks and writes fluently in French and German, reads Greek and Latin. He is already familiar with A. S. Dargomyzhsky and M. A. Balakirev and wrote two scherzos. One of them, a musician who did not study at the conservatory, managed to successfully orchestrate.

Under the direction of Balakirev, Mussorgsky worked on orchestral scores, carefully studying them, and also analyzed the harmony, counterpoint and form of the works of famous composers, learned to critically, very deeply evaluate them. By this time, he leaves the service in the army, but makes the most stringent requirements for himself, not allowing any promiscuity.

Society

Modest Petrovich took care of his appearance.

The musician tried to make people get the impression of him as a prosperous person. Indeed, from a neatly combed hair to hair of the head to the tips of polished elegant shoes, a well-groomed elegant man looks through us with complete equanimity on his face.

In life, he was a man with such manners, elegance, excellent speech, wit and education that all women melted under his charm. He also had a secret love for a woman whose name he did not revealnobody. Presumably, this is N. P. Opochinina, whom he put on the highest pedestal and dedicated the most lyrical compositions to her.

Maturity

This is the beginning of the darkest period in the composer's life. The portrait presented below shows that Modest Mussorgsky holds on despite the blows that fate inflicts on him: the Mighty Handful fell apart, the press viciously attacked his writings, the play Boris Godunov was almost stopped. The beloved woman died, and the composer suffered immensely. After her death, he wrote the bitter romance "Tombstone".

He lived only by creativity, creating romances on the verses of a new friend, Count A. A. Golenishchev-Kutuzov. But he got married and de alt friendship and cooperation an irreparable blow for Mussorgsky.

Creative take off

Even in the military school, a craving for libations was awakened. Under heavy emotional experiences, she woke up again. Developed imagination allowed, together with wine, to avoid the sad reality and create. The impulsiveness that was characteristic of him made him start new works without finishing them. Sublimating inner strength, the individualist Modest Petrovich plunged headlong into music. It was at this time that "Pictures at an Exhibition", a piano suite in memory of an artist friend Hartmann, was written. He himself composed the plot of "Khovanshchina" and began to write it, as well as "Sorochinsky Fair" based on Gogol. He was already thinking about an opera on the theme of the Pugachev uprising. Despite everything, he wanted to create and enjoy life.

Ilya Repin "Portrait of Mussorgsky"

Modest Petrovich no longer served. Friends formed and paid him a small pension. In 1881 he had an attack of delirium tremens. He was admitted to the hospital. For four sessions from March 14 to March 17, I. Repin created a portrait of M. P. Mussorgsky. And on March 28, the composer died. This gives the portrait a special depth and drama.

Hospital gown, tousled hair and beard do not distract us from the face of a completely sick person. A sparkle burns in his eyes and a lively mind shines and the thought of future works that he will not be able to compose. After all, he did not think about death. Repin did not embellish the composer at all, and therefore he turned out to be a living and real person.

The artist smoothed out swelling and wrinkles, made the most complex light nuances on the face and left us an image full of creative powers and inner nobility. The color is light and transparent. Against a light background, the face and figure look especially significant.

All Mussorgsky's portraits show his transformation from an impeccable officer and socialite to a declining personality.