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Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky (Russian
(language)|Russian:
Моде́ст
Петро́в&#
1080;ч
Му́сорг&#
1089;кий) (March 21, 1839
– March 28, 1881; sometimes spelled Modeste
Moussorgsky), was an innovative Russian composer
famed for his colourful, exotic, and lush
orchestral pieces dedicated to various subjects of
medieval Russian history. His major works include
the great national opera, Boris Godunov
(opera)|Boris Godunov, and the piano suite called
Pictures at an Exhibition.

==Life==

Image:mussorgsky_by_repin.jpg|right|thumb|Mussorgs
ky's celebrated portrait by Ilya Repin, painted
only a few days before the composer's death in
1881.
Mussorgsky was born in Kavero in the province of
Pskov. Mussorgsky's family descended from the
first Russian ruler, Rurik, through the sovereign
princes of Smolensk. Modest was prepared by his
parents for the military career, but under the
influence of Mily Balakirev quit the service when
he was twenty-two and joined The Mighty
Handful|The Five, a group of composers dedicated
to promoting a distinctly Russian kind of music.
His first published works were an unfinished opera
Salambbo and a cycle of songs. He wrote the opera
Boris Godunov when he was twenty-nine. It was
based upon the czar, "Boris". It became a great
success. However when the choruses sang against
the czar when heard, the opera was withdrawed from
the Imperial Opera. After the withdrawal of Boris,
Mussorgsky left The Mighty Handful|The Five and
was bitterly alone.

During his lifetime, Mussorgsky was but little
known, lived in dismal poverty and shared his
lodging with the fellow composer Nikolai
Rimsky-Korsakov. Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov edited
many of his works when he died. He died from
alcohol intoxication on March 28, 1881 and was
interred at the Tikhvin Cemetery of the Alexander
Nevsky Monastery in Saint Petersburg.
Rimsky-Korsakov then completed and recomposed some
of Mussorgsky's works, and these were made famous
through the criticism of Vladimir Stasov.

==Works==

The striking novelty of Mussorgsky's original
compositions had not been rediscovered until the
mid-20th century, when Dmitri Shostakovich
reorchestrated his two operas on the Muscovite
history, Boris Godunov (opera)|Boris Godunov
(based on Pushkin's play of the same title) and
Khovanshchina.

One of Mussorgsky's wildest and most barbaric
pieces (as the contemporary critics put it) is the
orchestral work Night on Bald Mountain|St. John's
Night on the Bare Mountain, which was made famous
in the US by its appearance in Walt Disney
Pictures|Disney's Fantasia (movie)|Fantasia. 

His most imaginative and frequently performed work
is the cycle of piano pieces, describing pictures
in sound and called Pictures at an Exhibition.
This composition, best known through an orchestral
arrangement by Maurice Ravel, was written in
commemoration of his friend, the architect Viktor
Hartmann.

Mussorgsky left another opera, Sorochintsy Fair,
incomplete at his death. However, a famous dance
movement, the Hopak, is drawn therefrom.  

Among his other works are a number of songs,
including three song cycles: The Nursery (1872),
Sunless (1874) and Songs & Dances of Death (1877).
Sunless lends its title to the 1982 film Sans
Soleil by Chris Marker.  The significance of the
reference is not readily apparent, but the
connection is acknowledged explicitly by Marker
towards the end of the film.