Modest Mussorgsky and His Sunless Song Cycle

Modest Mussorgsky and his cloudy Song Cycle Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky was wiz of the biggest innovators in Russian melody during the Romantic Period. Constantly striving to come upon a distinctive Russian medicinal drugal identity, he never unriv anyed time hesitated to defy the orthodox qualities and trends of western music. Born knock against 21, 1839, into a monied family living in Karevo, Russia, it was not long before Mussorgsky discovered his enjoy for music. He began playing piano at the age of 6 and showed assure development. However, he was obliged to take on the family tradition of serving in the military, and was sent to cadet school when he was 13.After 4 years, he successfully graduated and was sent to serve at a military hospital in Saint Peterburg. Here, he became close with several(prenominal) other constituters including Mily Balakirev, who hard influenced Mussorgsky to learn more about music. The two worked together over the attached few years devel oping his musical intelligence. After only several months, in 1858, Mussorgsky suffered from an emotional crisis, forcing him to resign from his commission, and devote his time entirely to music composition. He began to develop as a composer that was unfortunately thoughtless as his familys fortune began to dwindle.He was forced to accept a low-level civil service position in order to service issue his familys estate. In 1863, Mussorgsky returned to Saint Petersburg and began composing his first opera. During this time, he was undetermined to a heavily creative and intellectual atmosphere where a class of artistic and scientific ideas were brought to his attention. He soon came to embrace the ideal cognise as musical realism. With this mind set, Mussorgsky sought to depict manners finished music as it was truly lived. He rejected the repetition of isobilateral musical forms just as life itself is completely unpredictable.His style came to be known as erratic and exhibit ed a raw sense of individuality. Unfortunately, this model of real life hit him especially hard when his mother passed external in 1865. This was a profound moment in Mussorgskys life, unmatchable that may find pushed him into the downward spiral sodding(a) with alcohol, clinical depression, and bleakness that would at long end follow. By the late 1860s, his music had circulated well enough to earn him the right-hand(a) of being grouped with Balakirev, Cui, Rimsky-Korsavok, and Borodin as a part of Russias mighty Handful.However, he had yet to compose a successful opera. In Autumn of 1868, after abandoning his two previous attempts at Salammbo and Marriage, Vladimir Nikosky suggested that he compose an opera for Alexander Pushkins drama, Boris Godunov. Mussorgsky gladly accepted the challenged and began almost immediately. in spite of the opera being rejected by the State Censor (arguably not once tho twice), nearly 6 years later, his master establish was create to be shared with the world. The premier took place January 27, 1874, but to his dismay, it received a number of hostile and negative reactions.Even his good friend and fellow the right way Hand member, Cesar Cui, was unimpressed and proceeded to minimize his accomplishment with a scathing freshen up describing it as an immature work, and that it trespassed against the conventional musical grammar of the time. Mussorgsky was profoundly impacted by the public reaction. It nearly destroyed his self-confidence, and summoned what I moot to be the trace and pessimistic force that inspired his stress motorcycle entitled Bez Solnsta.Literally meaning sunless, or without sun, Bez Soinsta was a serial of 6 melodic phrases Mussorgsky composed to accompany a variety of poems written by his close friend and part-time roommate, Arseni Golenishchev-Kutuzov. As the name implies, the overall supposition of Sunless is rather bleak. Its music and lyrics especially evoke a straight feeling of lo neliness, hopelessness, insomnia, and boredom. From a psychological standpoint, one could say that this entire song cycle is a direct representation of the noetic state associated with depression and its symptomatic effects.I believe Mussorgsky chose to compose these songs when he did to reflect his degrading mental state of mind, which ultimately led to his demise. The first song of the cycle, consisting of only 17 bars, is entitled Within Four Walls. With its sparing accompaniment, this musically subtle piece tends to center around pedal D (first in the bass, later in the mid range, and then returning back to the bass). The melody blends a gang of recitative and aria with arching lines of infinite yearning and at times fierce dissonances.These unhoped harmonies are inevitably brought back to the unyielding D, all the while saturated with irregular phrase length and fermatas to perhaps allude to the unpredictability of life. unreal cadences of endless misery, combined with somb er poetic lyrics much(prenominal) as an sullen darkness, irresponsive darkness, this song seems to radiate a sense of profound pessimism that bed only be explained by the mental condition of Mussorgsky at the time. though only lasting a mere 11 bars, Mussorgskys assist song of the cycle, Thouh Didst Not Know Me In The Crowd, goes further harmonically than any other composer would be capable of.Frequently ending in foreign, assailable chords, this perfect blend of heightened recitatives and fervent melodies do justice to the associated lyrics provided by Kutuzof. The song seems to express and bewail the indifference of the world as personified in the neutrality of a former lover. The brief poetic phrasing is as follows You have not recognized me in the crowd. Your glance did not say anything, but I felt wonder and fright when I caught it. It was only a moment, but believe me, within it I re-lived again, all the delights of past love, all the bitterness of oblivion and tearsDet ails regarding Mussorgskys love life are sparse, but one can only assume that such words drenched in hopeless bitterness and overwhelming lugubriousness pertained some relevance to his current love affairs at the time. Mussorgskys terzetto song in the cycle is entitled The Noisy fete Day Is Ended. At the time, he was working in the forestry incision of The Russian Government as a clerk. Earning little income, and being eternally preoccupied with pointless tasks, his frustration grew, as he was increasingly put off from his real life as a composer.One of the more expansive Sunless songs, this 40 bar piece exhibits a variety of textures and gestures. Opening with a recitative, Mussorgsky continues to a lyrical middle section, where falling modal sixths are introduced. destination with an aria like finale, the song seems to convey no other emotions than hopeless proclivity and passionate despair. He expresses yet another day wasted, over is the utter and idle and clamorous day and another night sleep deprived, but sleep escapes from my eyes. But what has brought about this dissatisfaction? Could it be his unfulfilling job that distracts him from his trustworthy passion of music composition?Or perhaps it is a adult female who disturbs him so, I am bored with this dead crowd Only one shadow, the only one of all, appeared to me, breathing with love. Boredom is the fourth song in Mussorgskys Sunless song cycle. As the name suggests, through with(predicate)out the 29 bars, he repeats the opening statement a total of one-third times (making it a strophic song). However, it would not be very stylistic of Mussorgsky to recur this initial melody without some sort of change or variation. For separately repetition, he modifies the music slightly to appropriately reflect the changes in the text.During the third repetition, the music seems to take a more fierce and tragic orgasm than that of the first and second phrases. The lyrics here also seem to indicate a powerful sense hopelessness and despair as Kutuzov writes, Be bored. From pitch to the grave your path is written beforehand Drop by brush off youll waste your powers. Then youll die. Talk about depressing. At this point in time, Mussorgsky was drinking heavily, and seemed to idealize his alcoholism, perhaps viewing it as an ethical or aesthetic habbit. This of course led to increased isolation and depression, which is undeniably presented through songs such as this one.His fifth song, Elegy appears to be related in some way to the negative reaction of the public in reply to the recent premier of his opera, Boris Godunov. As discussed earlier, even his close friend and see fellow member of Russias Mighty Handful betrayed Mussorgsky with a untamed review of the piece. Elegy begins nicely as the fluttering piano piano compliments and symbolizes the Silent star flickering, lonely, through the veil of clouds. Arguably, this represents Mussorgskys opera at the time of its approval , waiting for the veil of clouds to be lifted in order to shine for all of the world to see.Later, the music changes drastically as a series of angry, dissonant and chromatic octaves relentlessly pound away(p) as the poetry describes what I believe to be the publics reaction to his take on Boris Godunov. And I hear in the surmount lifes discordant noise, laughter of the soulless crowd, the muttering of undependable feuding. Mussorgskys anger and frustration in response to the premier of his opera are clearly and effectively depicted here through his music. The last song of his Sunless cycle is entitled By The River. Throughout the piece, a stationary bass line with its insistent half step supports a eries of extreme chromatic harmonies. There is a strange contradictive sense of perceptual constancy and illusion to the piece, something which becomes even more prominent when compared to its poetry. Throughout the text, the line amongst sanity and madness and crossed, and you find yourself at the threshold of death. The poetry seems to essentially be a suicide note. The river acts as a means to an end, possessing wizard(prenominal) secrets in them (what happens after you die). When it calls into the depths, I want to jump without hesitation (suicide).The hopeless yearning and disheartening lyrics correspond with music nearly as dark and mysterious as the river portrays. In the years that followed, Mussorgskys mental and physical decline only worsened. The inability to resist drinking, combined with a series of deaths among his closes friends caused him great pain and sorrow. In 1880, he was terminated from the governmental service, and in 1881 he declared to a friend that there was, nothing leave but begging. It seemed as though Mussorgsky had given up on music, on himself, on life. Sure enough, not long after the fact, he suffered from a series of seizures and was hospitalized.An impoverished son of nobility, Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky died on March 28 , 1881, just a week after his 42nd birthday. His unfortunate bark with alcohol, and criticisms from the public eye, inspired a dark and despairing approach to music during his final years. Additionally, his interest and devotion to musical realism led to an irregular and controversial style, the critical reaction to which, he was unable to cope with. Sunless, with the help from Kutuzov, remains one of the bleakest works in the art song repertoire. Bibliography Articles http//www. recmusic. org/lieder/assemble_texts. tml? LanguageId=7&SongCycleId=60 http//www. allmusic. com http//en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Boris_Godunov_(opera) http//en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Modest_Mussorgsky http//en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Sunless_(song_cycle) Songs http//www. youtube. com/ fool? v=CKZwPYhXbbA http//www. youtube. com/watch? v=8KOvp0ienUI http//www. youtube. com/watch? v=tUXZ59hs2l8 http//www. youtube. com/watch? v=YU481pqyo54 http//www. youtube. com/watch? v=ym367Z_XJ-k http//www. youtube. com/watch? v=Raqo8RQL9i0 Scores http//www. musicaneo. com/sheetmusic/sm-4310_sunless_without_sun. html (yes, I bought it)