- by Art Sulit, www.MuSeeks.com/ArthurSulit
Music Timeline Author
Modest Mussorgsky was born one year before Tchaikovsky, and became a member of the "St. Petersburg Five", the elite company of amateur composers and writers (having government day jobs) including Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov (Naval Officer), Alexander Borodin (chemist), Balakyrev, Mussorgsky (Postal Worker) and Cui. Each professed a kind of animosity towards 'conservatory graduates', because of the typical 'theorist's sound' and isolation from the real world produced in average students. One exception, of course, was Tchaikovsky, who almost single-handedly uplifted the best of the Moscow Conservatory group, along with his teachers (brothers Arthur and Anton Rubenstien) and students (Glazunov and later Scriabin, Racmaninoff, etc.). Thus, there was a certain rivalry between the famous St. Petersburger's and the Moscow's.
Unfortunately, keeping day jobs did result in serious constraints on their development and output, such as Borodin's taking 30+ years to finish his 'Prince Igor' opera, and the clearly audible fact that none of these five ever attained the greatness of Tchaikovsky. There were many gems, however. Later, Rimsky-Korsakov, realizing his weakness in rigorous theory, enlisted the instruction of Tchaikovsky, then went on to publish his classic, "Principles of Orchestration", studied today by most aspiring composers. Mussorgsky stayed true to his separatist stance.
There is merit to the views of the 'St. Petersburg Five', as they broke all the rules typically drilled into conservatory students. Their music is so different, so dramatic, and has contributed so much to film score styles today. Witness Mussorgsky/Korsakov's joint 'Night on Bald Mountain' in Disney's 'Fantasia', a most scary piece for many children and adults alike.
In many ways, I can relate to this group of amateurs, being forced to compose only at night and every weekend while myself formerly holding down a Navy engineering job. My day job environment was rather unfriendly to cultivating national talents, so it took much personal health toll and unimaginable debts just to keep on developing what I was already writing at age 15. This is clearly evident in the ulcers and operations I had, and near mental breakdown from the hostile society, including the IRS, my own parents and sister towards this. At 30, I left my Navy job on one day's notice, in a quiet rage, after I had accumulated enough finished works that my skeptics can now believe, so that I can pursue the same heights Tchaikovsky sought full time. You can hear this rage in my music as I turned to writing consoling, beautiful, but highly-charged music. It is totally counter to this rat society which has so little sense for the sublime and the spiritual. This should give some insight into some of the (probably) same factors which contributed to the rage of Mussorgsky's music (although he severly lacked the religious element). So be on the lookout for my own works reflecting the Mussorgsky-Tchaikovsky influence.