Modest Mussorgsky was born in Karevo, Russia, on March 21, 1839. When he
was thirteen he entered the cadet school of the Imperial Guard in St.
Petersburg, from which he was graduated to join the Guard regiment. In
1857 he met and befriended several important Russian musicians
(including Balakirev and Stassov) under whose stimulus he decided to
leave the army and become a composer. Until now his musical education
had been sporadic, having consisted of little more than some piano
lessons with his mother and a private teacher. He now began an intensive
period of study with Balakirev, under whose guidance he completed a
_Scherzo_ for orchestra which was performed in St. Petersburg in 1860,
as well as some piano music and the fragments of a symphony. Associating
himself with Balakirev, Rimsky-Korsakov, Borodin, and Cui he now became
a passionate advocate of musical nationalism, becoming the fifth member
of a new school of Russian music henceforth identified as “The Mighty
Five” or “The Russian Five.” In 1863, with serfdom abolished in Russia,
he lost the outside financial resources he had thus far enjoyed as the
son of a landowner. To support himself he worked for four years as a
clerk in the Ministry of Communications; in 1869 he found employment in
the forestry department. During this period music had to be relegated to
the position of an avocation, but composition was not abandoned. He
completed the first of his masterworks, the orchestral tone poem, _A
Night on the Bald Mountain_, in 1866. A lifelong victim of nervous
disorders, melancholia and subsequently of alcoholism, his health soon
began to deteriorate alarmingly; but despite this fact he was able to
complete several works of crowning significance in 1874 including his
folk opera, _Boris Godunov_, and his _Pictures at an Exhibition_, for
piano. After 1874 his moral and physical disintegration became complete;
towards the last months of his life he gave indications of losing his
mind. He died in St. Petersburg on March 28, 1881.
As one of the most forceful and original members of the “Russian Five”
Mussorgsky’s greatest works certainly do not lend themselves to popular
distribution. His writing is too individual in its melodic and harmonic
construction; and his works show too great a tendency towards musical
realism to make for palatable digest. However, several of the folk
dances in his operas are strikingly effective for their rhythmic pulse
and national colors and are by no means as elusive in their appeal as
the rest of his production.
Mussorgsky’s masterwork is his mighty folk opera, _Boris Godunov_, where
we encounter one such delightful dance episode, the Polonaise. _Boris
Godunov_, libretto by the composer based on a Pushkin drama, traces the
career of the Czar from the years 1598 to 1605, from his coronation to
his insanity and death. The Polonaise occurs in the first scene of the
third act. At the palace of a Polish landowner, handsomely costumed
guests perform this festive courtly dance in the adjoining garden. The
première of _Boris Godunov_ took place in St. Petersburg on February 8,
1874.
Two orchestral dances can also be found in another of Mussorgky’s folk
operas, _The Fair at Sorochinsk_, which was not introduced until October
26, 1917, in St. Petersburg. The libretto was by the composer based on
Gogol’s story, _Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka_. Tcherevik, a peasant,
wants his daughter to marry Pritzko, whereas the peasant’s wife is
partial to the pastor’s son. However, when the pastor’s son compromises
the peasant’s wife she realizes that Pritzko is, after all, the right
man for her daughter. In the third act of this opera comes the lively
_Hopak_, or _Gopak_, a folk dance with two beats to a measure.
Folk dances of a completely different nature—more oriental and exotic
than the previously discussed Russian variety—will be found in
_Khovanschina_, a musical drama with libretto by the composer and
Stassov; this opera was first given, in an amateur performance, in St.
Petersburg on February 21, 1886. Here the setting is Moscow during the
reign of Peter the Great, and the plot revolves around the efforts of a
band of radicals known as the Streltsy who try to overthrow the Czar.
Prince Ivan Khovantsky, who is in league with the Streltsy, is murdered
by assassins, and the insurrection is suppressed. But before the leaders
of the Streltsy can destroy themselves they are given an official pardon
by the Czar. A high moment in this opera comes with the _Dances of the
Persian Slaves_, which takes place in the first scene of the fourth act.
At the country house of Khovantsky, the Prince is being entertained by
an elaborate spectacle, the main attraction of which is the sinuous,
Corybantic dancing of the Persian slaves.
Almost as popular as these Persian dances are the Prelude to the first
act and an entr’acte between the first and second scenes from this
opera; these two episodes for orchestra are highly atmospheric, graphic
in the pictures of Russian landscapes. The first act Prelude has been
named by the composer, _Dawn on the Moskava River_. This is a subtle
tone picture made up of a folk melody and five variations. The entr’acte
offers another kind of landscape, this time a bleak one describing the
vast, lonely plains of Siberia.