Musorgsky's reputation

[Despina41]

Poor Modest Musorgsky, always the red-nosed drunk. It's Ilya Repin's fault for painting this marvellous portrait of him RIGHT BEFORE HE DIED of alcoholism:



I think he might actually have been in the hospital at the time it was painted.

Anyway, Musorgsky wasn't always a drunk slob. In his early days he was rather foppish, and while he was in the military for a little bit, he always preferred to be performing and writing music. Supposedly he was a fine baritone, and used to sing at private soirees at his friend's house, performing the works of his operatic predecessor Dargomizhsky.

Musorgsky - with brushed hair!


His friends thought he was a little odd, and couldn't always follow his ideas. If you've ever picked up a volume of Musorgsky letters, it is like trying to read coded materials because there are so many inside jokes and obscure thought processes. For example, his personal nickname for Tchaikovsky was "Sadyk Pasha," after a Polish political instigator also named Tchaikovsky who had converted to Islam. He got into mysticism for a bit in his '20s, but he later turned to the realist philosophy. He was also pretty well read. After the serf system broke down in the 1860s he made some money translating German literature into Russian. (Who knew our drunk slob could read and speak three languages?!) Of course he was interested in the other arts, too -- poetry and painting, thanks to which we have Pictures at an Exhibition.
His best works come from the early 1870s before alcoholism got the better of him. He had finished Boris Godunov in 1869, but made revisions in the early '70s. You can hear great performances of both versions with Gergiev conducting:
[ame="http://www.amazon.com/Modest-Moussorgsky-Godounov-Version-Orchestra/dp/B00000DI3M/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1217431264&sr=8-6"]http://www.amazon.com/Modest-Moussorgsky-Godounov-Version-Orchestra/dp/B00000DI3M/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1217431264&sr=8-6[/ame]

Some of the great songs are collaborations with his poet roommate the Count Arseny Golenischev-Kutusov (the Sunless cycle, Songs and Dances of Death, etc). When G-K moved out to get married, Musorgsky suffered somewhat of a breakdown, which has caused even Richard Taruskin to wonder exactly what was the nature of the relationship. It was after this point that the alcoholism really got bad. He had always been a drinker (Russian AND in the military? come on), but it was all downhill after that.



As for the name, it's commonly spelled Mussorgsky with the three S's because his brother Filaret tried to change the spelling of the name. It was Musorgsky, but the Russian word for trash/dust is musor, so you can see why he wanted to change this. Modest embraced this name, however, and used to refer to sign his letters with "Musoryan" ("trash dweller")!

Here, I offer a pair of songs. The first is from the Nursery set, which Liszt had heard and liked so much he invited Musorgsky to meet him in Germany. It's from the 1860s. This particular song is the Hobby Horse, about a small child playing. TRAGICALLY, he hurts himself halfway through the song, and mommy has to come comfort him. Then it's back to play as usual!

This is Russian baritone Sergei Leiferkus who has recorded 3 volumes of Musorgsky songs.



From the same volume, here is another example of Musorgsky's ability to capture a mood, a psychological reality, a great irony. This song is the called Forgotten One, setting of a poem by G-K which was itself written in response to a banned painting. The painting depicted a dead soldier left behind when victorious Russian troops left.. wherever it was - I don't know my Russian history as well as I should! Anyway, it was too political a painting, and naturally our poet and composer gravitated to it. In his poem, G-K added the idea of a wife and baby waiting hopefully for the husband to return with the end of the war; little do they know he lies in the desert with the crows pecking out his eyes. Musorgsky sets it so simply, with some text painting - the clusters for the crows, the rocking lullaby for the mother singing to the child - obvious, but effective.



OK, one more, you can't leave on a note like that. Here's Darling Savishna, about the town fool following around the pretty Savishna. Musorgsky's friends thought he was crazy for writing such a song: 5/4 the whole time with NO place to breathe! "Unperformable!" - but how many times in music history has that been said? Something about the uneven lurch in this song, the persistence of the phrases just completely captures the sense of some poor bumbling fellow trying to catch the girl's attention, grasping at straws for what to say-



Well there's some of the lesser-known Musorgsky. It's a shame radio stations seem to avoid vocal music; it's probably the reason all we ever know from Musorgsky is Pictures. But I hope now you don't think of Musorgsky as just the composer of Pictures, or just the red-nosed drunk.

[Philidor]

* falls in love with 5/4 time *

I've tried to track down the banned painting. Any idea if it survived or who painted it? On M's drinking, I've seen pretty much this attitude: it killed two friends last year:

While alcoholism was Mussorgsky's personal weakness, it was also a behavior pattern considered typical for those of Mussorgsky's generation who wanted to oppose the establishment and protest through extreme forms of behavior. One contemporary notes, "an intense worship of Bacchus was considered to be almost obligatory for a writer of that period. It was a showing off, a 'pose,' for the best people of the [eighteen-]sixties." Another writes, "Talented people in Russia who love the simple folk cannot but drink." Mussorgsky spent day and night in a Saint Petersburg tavern of low repute, the Maly Yaroslavets, accompanied by bohemian dropouts like himself. He and his fellow drinkers idealized their alcoholism, perhaps seeing it as ethical and aesthetic opposition. This bravado, however, led to little more than isolation and eventual self-destruction.

Wiki

Wonderful post btw.

[Despina41]

Painting was by Vassili Vereshchagin. Took me a while to track him down because everyone spells his name differently. Can't we decide on a transliteration system for Russian? gah. Good thing I'm studying some Russian or I would have given up.
Ok, but he destroyed the painting in a fit of depression later. However, he has many paintings on the similar theme of the horrific consequences of war. Here is the most famous one:

The Apotheosis of War from 1871



and Cannibal from 1870



So, it's not the same one, but you get the picture.

[maureen]

i'll listen when i get home
thanks

this serves phil and flor's intention of making classical music accessible

i for one appreciate it

[Florestan]

Originally Posted by maureen

i'll listen when i get home

Me too - this is really fantastic.

Glad my comments about Musorgsky's rosy hooter have provoked such a wonderful exposition of his life and lesser-known work.

I suspect he was partial to a drink even when he brushed his hair - but I suppose it got the better of him in the end. No one could blame him for alcoholism. It seems to be not so much an occupational hazard for Russians as an existential one.

[Florestan]

I listened to them with phili this morning and they are glorious. The Hobby Horse is so sweet.

The Apotheosis of War is, as you say, a famous painting, but I hadn't made the connection with the portrait of Musorgsky.

I seem to remember that it was held in many art books I read in my youth to be a precursor of surrealism in general and Dali in particular.

[Florestan]

I can't actually see the picture despina posted up, owing to an outstanding example of IT department Nazism. This is the message I get when I try to view it:

Access to the site http://www.arts-oilpaintings.com/art...8/VV1388_4.jpg has been categorised as Nudity;Arts/Entertainment and has been logged and denied.

There aren't really enough
in the world to express my contempt.

[Philidor]

Remember Cranach and the Tube prudes? This should blow up their server.

[Florestan]

A big message is now flashing on and off on my screen. It says:

YOU'RE FIRED

[Philidor]

Woops.