The Life of Musorgsky

Caryl Emerson author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Cambridge University Press

Published:30th Sep '99

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This book, first published in 1999, is a biography of Russia's greatest musical dramatist, Modest Musorgsky (1839–81).

This book, first published in 1999, is a biography of Russia's greatest musical dramatist, Modest Musorgsky, known for his opera Boris Godunov, for his innovative realistic art songs, and for 'Pictures at an Exhibition'. It emphasizes the psychological and economic factors that contributed to the composer's remarkable autodidactic rise and tragic, premature end.Modest Musorgsky is Russia's greatest musical dramatist. When he died in 1881 in St Petersburg at the age of forty-two, in poverty and relative obscurity, he was known for a single opera, Boris Godunov and a handful of eccentric 'realistic' songs set to prosaic Russian texts. He had no institutional connections, no 'degree', no family of his own, not even a permanent address. Except for Franz Liszt, no composer of stature knew of him outside Russia. Through the loyal (if controversial) intervention of his friends, his works survived in various editings into the early twentieth century, when revivals and evolving musical tastes restored him to new life. This account of his life, first published in 1999, emphasizes the psychological and economic factors that contributed to the composer's remarkable rise and tragic, premature end and is the first brief biography in English to make use of materials published in the new, de-Sovietized Russian academic climate.

'Emerson's biography seamlessly combines imaginative and reliable scholarship.' The Times Literary Supplement
' … if you want serious reflection and food for thought in what is far more than a mere chronicle, then Emerson is a historically reliable, aesthetically curious companion.' David Nice BBC Music Magazine
'Emerson manages to flesh out the man's character and to offer plausible theories as to the reasons for Musorgsky's decline.' The Musical Times

ISBN: 9780521480093

Dimensions: 224mm x 148mm x 20mm

Weight: 411g

216 pages