Musorgsky : His Life and Works

Hailed by the New York Times Book Review as a "no-holds-barred biography" and "a state-of-the-art guide to the composer's life and works," this superb volume in the Master Musicians series offers the first life-and-works study of this towering composer of nineteenth-century Russian music to appear in English for over a half century. David Brown shows how the largely untrained Modest Musorgsky emerged as a supreme musical dramatist in his first opera, Boris Godunov. Along with this impressive debut and his much-loved piano suite, Pictures at an Exhibition, Musorgsky produced some of the most startlingly novel music of the nineteenth century. He also displayed a prodigious gift for uncovering the emotional content of a text in his highly original song compositions. While illuminating Musorgsky's work, Brown paints a detailed portrait of a fitful composer who could apply himself with superhuman intensity when the inspiration was upon him, but who deteriorated into alcoholism and died tragically young.

Hailed by the New York Times Book Review as a "no-holds-barred biography" and "a state-of-the-art guide to the composer''s life and works," this superb volume in the Master Musicians series offers the first life-and-works study of this towering composer of nineteenth-century Russian music to appear in English for over a half century. David Brown shows how the largely untrained Modest Musorgsky emerged as a supreme musical dramatist in his first opera, Boris Godunov. Along with this impressive debut and his much-loved piano suite, Pictures at an Exhibition, Musorgsky produced some of the most startlingly novel music of the nineteenth century. He also displayed a prodigious gift for uncovering the emotional content of a text in his highly original song compositions. While illuminating Musorgsky''s work, Brown paints a detailed portrait of a fitful composer who could apply himself with superhuman intensity when the inspiration was upon him, but who deteriorated into alcoholism and died tragically young.