Modest Mussorgsky
From Wikiquote
Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky (1839-03-21 N.S. / 1839-03-09 O.S. – 1881-03-28 N.S. / 1881-03-16 O.S.) was a Russian composer who, along with the other members of the Five, created a Russian nationalist form of classical music.
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Sourced [edit]
- My music must be an artistic reproduction of human speech in all its finest shades. That is, the sounds of human speech, as the external manifestations of thought and feeling must, without exaggeration or violence, become true, accurate music.
- In poetry there are two giants, rough Homer and fine Shakespere. In music likewise we have two giants, Beethoven, the thinker, and the superthinker Berlioz.
- Letter to Vladimir Stassov, October 18, 1872; Oskar von Riesemann (trans. Paul England) Moussorgsky (1929) p. 107.
- I regard the people as a great being, inspired by a single idea. This is my problem. I strove to solve it in this opera.
- MS dedication to Boris Godunov, January 21, 1874. [1]
Criticism [edit]
- Mussorgsky, in his vocal efforts, appears wilfully eccentric. His style impresses the Western ear as barbarously ugly.
- Edward Dannreuther The Oxford History of Music (Oxford: Clarendon, 1905) vol. 6, p. 321 [2]
