Mussorgsky, Modest Petrovich

views updated Jun 27 2018

Mussorgsky, Modest Petrovich (1839–81) Russian composer, one of the ‘Russian Five’ who promoted nationalism in Russian music. Mussorgsky's finest work is the opera Boris Godunov (1868–69). Other important pieces include the piano work Pictures from an Exhibition (1874, later orchestrated by several composers) and A Night on the Bare Mountain (1867). After his death, much of Mussorgsky's work was edited and revised, notably by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov.

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