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Modesty and melancholy; Russian composers.('Musorgsky: His Life and Work')(Brief Article)

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From: The Economist (US)
Date: 20021005
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IT IS perhaps only fitting that Modest Musorgsky's last public appearance, before he died in 1881 at the age of 42, should have been to play at a memorial service for the novelist, Fyodor Dostoevsky.

The composer's life epitomised one of those depressed and fatalistic characters that so abound in Russian fiction and drama. An alcoholic from his teens, Musorgsky achieved little success in the concert hall. His only well-known piece of orchestral music is "St John's Night on the Bare Mountain", while his most famous piano sequence, "Pictures at an Exhibition", as well as his ...

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