Модест Петрович Мусоргский

Modeste Petrovich Mussorgsky (Born March 9, 1839 (March 21, 1839 in the Gregorian calendar) in Karevo, near Toropets in the Pskov government, and died March 16, 1881 (March 28, 1881 in the Gregorian calendar) in St. Petersburg, is a Russian composer, first famous for his opera Boris Godunov, and later for piano paintings at an exhibition (1874) - orchestrated by Maurice Ravel in 1922. Biography : Mussorgsky's family descended from the first Russian monarch, Rurik, via the sovereign princes of Smolensk (the Rurikid dynasty). Modeste is prepared by his parents for a military career and is a student of the famous École de cavalerie Nicolas; but under the influence of Mili Balakirev, he left the prestigious Preobrazhensky regiment of the Imperial Guard, in which he later entered, and joined the Group of Five, a group of composers and ardent defenders of a national art based on Russian folk music. This group includes Alexander Borodin, whom he met in 1856 while serving in the same military hospital in St. Petersburg, Mili Balakirev, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Caesar Cui. His first published musical work is the unfinished opera Salammbô and a cycle of melodies for a solo voice and piano. Beginning in 1863, following the abolition of serfdom in Russia, which ruined his family, Mussorgsky had to work as an administrative employee to support himself. He is then thirty years old and, confronted with the failure of his works, too far from the academic canons, and with a difficult material situation, he thinks he finds a consolation in the alcohol he had already known during his career. three years to the army. He died at the age of 42 in St. Petersburg. His remains are in the Tikhvin cemetery of Alexander Nevsky Monastery (St. Petersburg).