These informative biographies present a revealing look into the events, people and places that influenced the creation of the composer s major works and tell the story of the impact that Russia had on the history of wester... more »n music.Modest Mussorgsky was the most original and influential of the 19th century Russian nationalist composers.Mussorgsky was born on March 21, 1839 in Karevo, Russia. He was educated privately and at a military academy in St. Petersburg. In 1952 he entered the School for Cadets of the Guard and composed his first musical works.During the winter of 1856, a regimental comrade introduced Mussorgsky to the Russian nationalist composer Mikhail Glinka, and this inspired his own nationalistic spirit. Upon visiting the Kremlin he was to say, "To bring the past into the present - that is my task!" In 1858 he resigned from military service to devote himself to music; after 1863 he supported himself as a government clerk. Musically, Mussorgsky was self-taught. His songs, among the finest of the 19th century, reflect his desire to reproduce the rhythms of Russian speech. So also does his masterpiece, the opera Boris Godunov (1868). Mussorgsky's other major works include the piano suite Pictures at an Exhibition (1874), orchestrated in 1922 by the French composer Maurice Ravel, the symphonic poem Night on Bare Mountain (1867) and the unfinished opera Kovanshchina, completed by Rimsky-Korsakov.In spite of the success of his works, Mussorgsky was not happy. Totally neglected by his former friends, he departed on a lengthy concert tour of southern Russia. Upon his return he tried teaching in St. Petersburg. He died on March 28, 1881 while working on the opera Sorochintsy Fair.« less