Musorgsky - His Life and Works

This is not only the first life-and-works on Musorgsky in English for over half a century but also the largest such study of the composer ever to have appeared outside Russia. Mussorgsky was one of the towering figures of nineteenth century Russian music - but also one of the most tragic. Largely an amateur with no systematic training in composition, he nevertheless emerged in his first opera, Boris Godunov, as a supreme musical dramatist, presenting here (and in certain of his piano pieces in Pictures at an Exhibition) some of the most startlingly original of all song composers, with a prodigious gift for uncovering the emotional content of a text. His failure to complete his two remaining operas, Khovanshchina and Sorochintsy Fair, before his premature death from alcohol poisoning is one of music's greatest tragedies.

Preface
Illustrations
1.:Childhood and early years
2.:The making of a composer: I
3.:The making of a composer: II
4.:The early songs: I
5.:Salammbô
6.:The early songs: II
7.:St John's Night on the Bare Mountain more songs
8.:The Marriage: towards Boris
9.:Boris Godunov: composition and production
10.:Boris Godunov
11.:Life alongside Boris - The Nursery completed, A note on Musorgsky's spelling of his name
12.:Life alongside Boris II: Khovanshchina begun
13.:Two relationships: Pictures at an Exhibition and Sunless
14.:Khovanshchina
15.:Songs and Dances of Death: Last songs
16.:Sorochintsy Fair
17.:Final years
18.:Postlude: the century since
Appendices
A.:Calendar
B.:List of works
C.:Personalia
D.:Select bibliography
Index