| Birth: | Mar. 21, 1839 | | Death: | Mar. 28, 1881 | 
Composer. His mother gave him piano lessons, and at nine he played a Field concerto before an audience in his parents' house. In 1852 he entered the Guards' cadet school in St Petersburg. Although he had not studied harmony or composition, in 1856 he tried to write an opera the same year he entered the Guards. In 1858 he passed through a nervous or spiritual crisis and resigned his army commission. The emancipation of the serfs in March 1861 obliged him to spend most of the next two years helping manage the family estate. In 1863 he served at the Ministry of Communications. Mussorgsky spent summer 1867 at his brother's country house at Minkino, where he wrote his first important orchestral work, St. John's Night on the Bare Mountain. Early in 1869 Mussorgsky re-entered government service and in more settled conditions, was able to complete the original version of the opera Boris Godunov. This was rejected by the Mariinsky Theatre and Mussorgsky set about revising it. In 1872 the opera was again rejected, but excerpts were performed elsewhere and a vocal score published. The opera committee finally accepted the work and a successtul production was mounted in February 1874. During the earlier part of 1878 he seems to have led a more respectable life and his director at the ministry allowed him leave for a three-month concert tour with Darya Leonova. After he was obliged to leave the government service in January 1880, Leonova helped him with employment and a home. On 23 February 1881 he tumed in a state of nervous excitement, saying that there was nothing left for him but to beg in the streets; he was suffering from alcoholic epilepsy. He was removed to hospital, where he died a month later. (bio by: Jelena)
Search Amazon for Modest Mussorgsky | | | Burial:
Alexander Nevsky Monastery
St. Petersburg, Russian Federation |
Maintained by: Find A Grave
Record added: Jan 01, 2001
Find A Grave Memorial# 1513 |
|
|
|
|
(4.3 after 44 votes)
