Mussorgsky: Complete Piano Works, Vol. 1

Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky 1. Porte-enseigne. Polka (Ensign-Polka, 1852) B-flat Major 2. Souvenir d’enfance (Childhood memories, 1857) B Minor 3. Scherzo (1858) C-sharp Minor 4. Jeux dénfants-les quatre coins (Children’s game, hide-and-seek, 1860) D Major 5. Niania et moi (Nanny and I, 1865) G Major 6. Première punition (First punishment, 1865) A Minor 7. Une larme (A Tear, 1880) G Minor 8. Intermezzo symfonique (1861) B Minor 9. Au village (In the Village, 1880) G Major 10. Impromptu passioné (1859) F-sharp Major 11. La capricieuse (Russian: “Shalunja”: a mischievous girl, 1865) A Minor 12. Méditation (Russian: “Razdumye”, 1880) D Minor 13. La couturière (The Seamstress, 1870-72) D-flat Major 14. Rêverie (Russian: “Duma”: thought, 1865) E-flat Minor 15. En Crimée (Near the southern bank of the Crimea, 1880) B-flat Minor 16. En Crimée (On the south bank of the Crimea, 1880) E-flat Minor Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky (1839-81): Piano music, vol. 1 © Mussorgsky’s family belonged to the gentry and his childhood was influenced by aristocratic culture. He hd piano lessons and was at the age of seven able to play smaller pieces by Liszt. He continued to receive piano tuition in St. Petersburg and bloomed into a virtuoso. At the age of thirteen hen entered the junker school, a preparatory military academy in St. Petersburg, and here he wrote his first known composition, Port-Enseigne Polka, and with this and his talent for providing piano entertainment at parties and balls he soon became a popular society man and drawing-room lion. Later he abandoned his career as an officer, becoming a civil servant, but also a dipsomaniac. When his family went bancrupt when serfdom was abolished and his father died, he moved with his mother, his sisters and brothers to an apartment in St. Peterburg. However he tore himself away from a strong mother-fixation and moved into a community, a socialistically-inspired collective. Later he shared an apartment for some years with Rimsky-Korsakov. Owing to his alcohol problem and lack of any grounding in musical theory Mussorgsky gave up composing many works when he was only half-way through. But one large-scale work he did complete: the Russian national opera Boris Gudonov, a masterpiece wich was thoroughly misundertstood. Mussorgsky is at his greatest – apart from the opera – is in his songs, but the piano music also holds many treasures, and not only the extended suite “Pictures at an Exhibition”. In 1881 he went on a tour of Southern Russia to accompany a singer. But he had to interrupt the tour and return home in order to be treated for delirium tremens. He died in hospital, only 42 years old. RELEASE DATE: NOVEMBER 2000 CATALOGUE NUMBER: DACOCD 551 EAN: 5709499551004 Download BOOKLET (PDF) Related