Boris Godunov is the most famous Russian opera of all time and gave its creator, Modest Mussorgsky, a permanent spot in Russian history. The opera is fundamentally Russian as it uses variations of Russian folk music, a heavy appearance of horns, and plays off famous historical context of the country. The political themes of the opera come full circle as they directly relates to the political state of Russia during Mussorgsky’s lifetime. The operas emotional conflicts dealing with guilt, love, lust, greed, and the struggle for power are what makes this opera universally relatable. This is why the opera is not only one of the most important pieces of Russian composition, but one of the most famous pieces in the world.
The young Modest Mussorgsky was born in 1839 in Russia. His mother was a virtuoso pianist, and gave Modest piano lessons since he was very young. By the age of seven he was already showing great promise, and could play some of Franz Liszt’s pieces. In 1849, at only ten years old, his father took Modest to St. Petersburg to the Peter-Paul School in preparation for a military career. His father also took into consideration Modest’s musical passions, his father entrusted Modest to Anton Gerke, who would later be a professor of music at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. In 1852 Mussorgsky entered the School for Cadets of the Guard. It was in the School for Cadets of the Guard that Mussorgsky composed his first piece, the Podpraporshchik. In his years in the army he met and learned from several of the men who later become members of The Five.
Beginning in 1856 Mussorgsky began visiting St. Petersburg to meet with The Five, which was made up of himself and four other Russian composers. Their aim was to create music that w...
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...and Works. Fair Lawn, N.J.: Essential Books, 1956.
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"Category: Mussorgsky, Modest." - IMSLP/Petrucci Music Library: Free Public Domain Sheet Music. http://imslp.org/wiki/Category:Mussorgsky,_Modest (accessed May 6, 2014).
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Littell, E. . The Living Age . . Reprint, : Living Age Company, Incorporated, 1853.
NPR. "Mussorgsky's 'Boris Godunov'." NPR. http://www.npr.org/2007/07/06/11752910/mussorgskys-boris-godunov (accessed May 6, 2014).
Richard Taruskin. "Boris Godunov." The New Grove Dictionary of Opera. Grove Music Online.Oxford Music Online. Oxford University Press, accessed May 6, 2014,http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/O006575.
Ultimately, it is apparent that Carl Orff’s “Carmina Burana” and Modeste Moussorgsky’s “Pictures At An Exhibition” share similarities such as the instruments used and influences, yet share differences like the background of the composers and time these pieces were composed. “Carmina Burana” and “Pictures At An Exhibition” are both beautifully composed works and will continue to intrigue the mind of all who listen to them.
Volondat, Pierre-Alain, perf. Variations OP 20. By Clara Schumann. Rec. 15 May 2010. Saphir Productions, 2008. Florida College's Classical Music Library. Web. 17 Nov. 2013.
Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky is the author of six symphonies and the finest and most popular operas in the Russian repertory. Tchaikovsky was also one of the founders of the school of Russian music. He was a brilliant composer with a creative imagination that helped his career throughout many years. He was completely attached to his art. His life and art were inseparably woven together. "I literally cannot live without working," Tchaikovsky once wrote, "for as soon as one piece of work is finished and one would wish to relax, I desire to tackle some new work without delay." The purpose of this paper is to give you a background concerning Tchaikovsky's biography, as well as to discuss his various works of art.
Antonin Dvorak was one of the leading composers of the late Romantic period and one of many composers that utilized portions of music from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds in his compositions. The idea of Music Nationalism can be found in many of his works, especially in his Symphony no. 9 in E minor “from the New World”, which incorporates ideas from the American culture.
It never occurred to me that one simple song could hold as much power as Shostakovich’s Seventh Symphony, “Leningrad,” did. The greatest strength of Shostakovich’s biography is his ability to recreate the vivid setting of 1940’s Leningrad. The artful descriptions of the city help bring out the contrast between the fallen city and the hope that Shostakovich’s symphony brought. Memoirs are becoming so popular today because they provide in-depth looks into snippets of history, like M.T. Anderson does with “Symphony for the City of the
This is the second volume of Richard Taruskin's historical work, and it highlights composers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He examines the progression of different styles and eras of music.
- Norris, Jeremy Paul. The development of the Russian piano concerto in the nineteenth century. Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1988. Print.
TitleAuthor/ EditorPublisherDate James Galways’ Music in TimeWilliam MannMichael Beazley Publishers1982 The Concise Oxford History of MusicGerald AbrahamOxford University Press1979 Music in Western CivilizationPaul Henry LangW. W. Norton and Company1941 The Ultimate Encyclopaedia of Classical MusicRobert AinsleyCarlton Books Limited1995 The Cambridge Music GuideStanley SadieCambridge University Press1985 School text: Western European Orchestral MusicMary AllenHamilton Girls’ High School1999 History of MusicRoy BennettCambridge University Press1982 Classical Music for DummiesDavid PogueIDG Books Worldwide,Inc1997
Here, Beethoven takes melodic expression to a new level: The appoggiatura in bars, 14 and 16 create a harmonic tension over a diminished 7th chord that creates “the highly expressive progression used by nineteenth-...
Grove, George. The Musical Times Volume 47. United Kingdom: Musical Times Publications Ltd. 1906, Print.
The first piece performed, Hindemith’s Symphony: Mathis der Maler, called for the entire orchestra featuring an enormous string and brass section as well as a percussion section complete with glockenspiel and triangle. After a brief intermission, Michael Boriskin appeared on stage with the orchestra for a splendid performance of Brahms’s Concerto No. 2 in B-flat Major for Piano and Orchestra, opus 83. Since both pieces were quite long, this discussion will be devoted to the work by Brahms.
Frederic Chopin is one of the most famous and influential composers from the nineteenth century. He is especially known for his piano music now and then. Chopin’s works include three sonatas, mazurkas, waltzes, nocturnes, polonaises, etudes, impromptus, scherzos, ballades, preludes, two piano concertos, a few chamber music, and some Polish vocal pieces. He played an important role in the 19th century Polish nationalistic movement. In particular, his mazurkas and polonaises based on Polish dances best express his nationalistic passion and the musical features of the Polish culture.
Overall Rimsky-Korsakov’s pieces are the essence of Russian heritage and they are quite underrated, but he was in the “Mighty Five” so you know his pieces were good. He was a great master of orchestral sound painting, no one can compete with him even in today’s age. Nowadays people should learn from
John Warrack, author of 6 Great Composers, stated, “Any study of a composer, however brief, must have as its only purpose encouragement of the reader to greater enjoyment of the music” (Warrack, p.2). The composers and musicians of the Renaissance period need to be discussed and studied so that listeners, performers, and readers can appreciate and understand the beginnings of music theory and form. The reader can also understand the driving force of the composer, whether sacred or secular, popularity or religious growth. To begin understanding music composition one must begin at the birth, or rebirth of music and the composers who created the great change.
As a youth he reluctantly studied law, as much bore by it as Schumann had been, and even became a petty clerk in the Ministry of Justice. But in his early twenties he rebelled, and against his family's wishes had the courage to throw himself into the study of music at the St. Petersburg Conservatory. He was a ready improviser, playing well for dancing and had a naturally rich sense of harmony, but was so little schooled as to be astonished when a cousin told him it was possible to modulate form any key to another. He went frequently to the Italian operas which at that time almost monopolized the Russian stage, and laid t...