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Modest Petrovitch Moussorgsky was born March 16th, 1839, in the village of Karevo in the government of Pskow, Russia. His parents were members of the lesser nobility. His mother gave him his first piano lessons. At the age of ten he was sent to the School of St. Peter and St. Paul in Petrograd. His piano-studies were continued with a certain Professor Herke.
Indeed, when finally there devolved upon him, as general legatee of the nationalist school, the task of correcting and editing the works of Borodin and Dargomijsky and Moussorgsky, he brought to his labor an eruditeness that bordered dangerously on pedantry. Nor was his learning only musical.
It is the utterance of the profoundest spiritual knowledge of a people. Moussorgsky was buoyed by the great force of the Russian charity, the Russian humility, the Russian pity.
He was one of the famous "five" who in the decade after 1870 found Russia her modern musical speech. The group, which comprised Moussorgsky, Balakirew, Cui, Rimsky-Korsakoff and Borodin, was unified by an impulse common to all the members. All were in revolt against the grammar of classical music.
The little piece called "Les jeux d'eau de La Villa d'Este" seems not a little to anticipate their style. And although you were not responsible for the music of the nationalistic Russian school, the robust, colorful barbarian in you nevertheless made you welcome and encourage their work. It made you write to Borodin and Moussorgsky those cordial letters which pleased them so much.
He is an impressionist, a stylist, the reverse of Moussorgsky, and he has the "conscience of the ear" which his friend lacked. Praised by Liszt, admired by Von Bülow, he revealed the influence of the Hungarian. Profound psychologist he was not; an innovator, like Moussorgsky he never would have been; the tragic eloquence vouchsafed Tschaikovsky was denied him.
Yes what did he believe in, besides money? What does any man? He looked at the black patch over the major's eye. What had he given his eye for? the nation's money. Well, and very necessary, too; otherwise we might be where the wretched Austrians are. Instead of which how smooth his hostess' sapphires! "Of course I myself prefer Moussorgsky," said Aaron. "I think he is a greater artist.
For what they inwardly were was close akin to the breath, the spirit, the touch, that had invented those chants, and built those minarets and wrought that armor and composed those epics. The accent of Moussorgsky was in the grave and popular melodies, in the liturgical incantations, before he was born.
Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Cui, Glazounov, Rachmaninov, Moussorgsky, Arensky, Scriabine and others, have all had a powerful bearing upon the musical thought of the times. Their virility and character have been due to the newness of the field in which they worked.
Indeed, it had to await the coming of "Pelléas et Mélisande" in order to take its rightful place. For while Moussorgsky may have influenced Debussy artistically, it was Debussy's work that made for the recognition and popularization of Moussorgsky's.
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