MUSSORGSKY, MODEST

born March 9 [March 21, New Style], 1839, Karevo, Russia died March 16 [March 28], 1881, St. Petersburg in full Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky, Mussorgsky also spelled Musorgsky or Moussorgsky Russian composer noted particularly for his opera Boris Godunov (final version first performed 1874), his songs, and his piano piece Pictures from an Exhibition (1874). Mussorgsky, along with Aleksandr Borodin, Mily Balakirev, Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov, and Csar Cui, was a member of The Five, a group of Russian composers bound together in the common goal of creating a nationalist school of Russian music. Additional reading Biographies and critical studies include Oskar von Riesemann, Moussorgsky, trans. from German by Paul England (1929, reissued 1971); M.D. Calvocoressi, Mussorgsky, rev. ed. completed by Gerald Abraham (1974, reissued 1977); Malcolm Hamrick Brown (ed.), Musorgsky, in Memoriam, 18811981 (1982), a collection of scholarly papers on very specific aspects of his music; Alexandra Orlova (compiler and ed.), Musorgsky Remembered, trans. from Russian by Vronique Zaytzeff and Frederick Morrison (1991), reminiscences by his contemporaries and near-contemporaries; and Richard Taruskin, Musorgsky: Eight Essays and an Epilogue (1993, reissued 1997).