Biography of Mussorgsky. Some facts

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

The main figure of this article will be Modest Mussorgsky. The composer's biography begins on March 16, 1839 in one of the small villages of the Pskov region. From an early age, his parents, who belonged to an old noble family, introduced the boy to music. His mother taught him to play the piano, and at the age of seven he was already performing plays. A few years later, the future genius already mastered entire concerts.

Mussorgsky's early biography

Few of Modest's ancestors could have imagined that he would become a great musician and composer. All Mussorgsky's relatives were devoted to the state, and the men served in the tsar's army. The exception was at first the father - Peter Mussorgsky, who was distinguished by a great passion for music, and then his son, who inherited this gift. The first piano teacher was Modest's mother, Yulia Chirikova.

In 1849, Modest Mussorgsky went to St. Petersburg, and there he began his first professional music lessons with teacher A. A. Gerke. Under his leadership, he performs at chamber concerts, family evenings and otherevents. And already in 1852 he wrote and published his own polka called "Ensign".

The Founding Period of the Mighty Handful

Since 1856, Mussorgsky's biography has been unfolding in the Preobrazhensky Regiment, in St. Petersburg, where he simultaneously meets the composer A. Borodin. They become very close friends, who are united not only by a common cause, but also by creativity - music. Some time later, he also met A. Dargomyzhsky, M. Balakirev, C. Cui, as well as the Stasov brothers. All these composers are familiar to us thanks to the Mighty Handful group, which they founded.

The main figure in their "galaxy" was Balakirev - he became a teacher and spiritual mentor for every composer. Together with him, Mussorgsky taught new concertos and large-scale works by such famous composers as Beethoven, Schubert, Strauss. Visiting the Philharmonic, opera performances and other musical events contributed to the fact that for Modest the goal of life was the knowledge of the beautiful and the creation of it.

Mussorgsky's biography during the new work of The Mighty Handful

In the next decade, the composers of the "Mighty Handful" adopted the rule that they must follow all the musical canons of M. Glinka. During this period, Mussorgsky wrote music for Sophocles' story Oedipus Rex, and then took up the opera Salambo. Unfortunately, it remained unfinished, but many works written for it were included in the composer's masterpiece - the opera Boris Godunov.

Travel periodand flowering of creativity

In the 60s, Mussorgsky's biography unfolds in new lands. He sets off on a journey in which the city of Moscow becomes the main point. It was this place that inspired him to write his opera "Boris Godunov", since, in his opinion, he met "women and men" suitable for staging there.

In the future, the composer did not forget to give instrumental concerts, vocal performances. Among pianists, he had no equal, and his own works were praised by many connoisseurs of beauty. It was in this world that the composer Mussorgsky spent his young years.

His biography changes dramatically in the 80s. Then his he alth was broken, his financial situation was shaken. He no longer had so much time for creativity, so he started drinking. He died on his birthday, in 1881, in a military hospital.