# Had Mussorgsky lived longer...



## silentio (Nov 10, 2014)

We often heard the questions, "what if Mozart or Schubert had lived longer?". But let's not forget about Mussorgsky, who died terribly young at the age of 42.

Now given the genius that he demonstrated in _Boris Godunov_ and _Pictures at the Exhibition_, and suppose that alcoholism hadn't gotten into too much his way, how would a Mussorgsky that was productive until his 60's or 70's have impacted the late 19th-century and early 20th-century music?

Some ground-breaking reformation to the form of opera that would be equivalent to Wagner's _gesamtkunstwerk_? More epic concertos and tone poems? Or even an entirely new musical language?


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

I think he would have continued to be iconoclastic, although the evidence in Boris points to his actually becoming more "traditional" as he developed.


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## silentio (Nov 10, 2014)

MarkW said:


> I think he would have continued to be iconoclastic, although the evidence in Boris points to his actually becoming more "traditional" as he developed.


Interesting. By traditional do you mean Glinka-esque?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Who knows? He was alcoholic, he didn't produce much, and 42 is old enough to have accomplished much more than he did.


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

Do _not_ tell either party about this, or I'm so grounded.


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

It's a counterfactual and no way of knowing. It's like asking what history would've been like if Hitler had been killed in WWI.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Ethereality said:


> Do _not_ tell either party about this, or I'm so grounded.


Ludest van Beethovorgsky?


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

*Had Mussorgsky lived longer... *

Three works we're missing because of Mussorgsky's early death:

_Day on Bald Mountain_

_Pictures at Another Exhibition_

and, of course, the opera

_Ivan Beterdanborisgodunov_


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

I heavily gravitate towards the Russian sound, especially those who just wanted to create a perfect sound without all the conflation of experimental Romanticism, such as Borodin. The problem with sticking with perfection though is it can get boring over time.


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

Well, Mussorgsky would probably have completed his unfinished operas Khovanshchina the Fair at Sorochinsk and Salambo , possibly orchestrated Pictures at an Exhibition himself . And who knows which works he might have conceived after he died . such as operas based other episodes in Russian history etc . No doubt his premature death deprived us of what would have been some amazing masterpieces !


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## CnC Bartok (Jun 5, 2017)

superhorn said:


> Well, Mussorgsky would probably have completed his unfinished operas Khovanshchina the Fair at Sorochinsk and Salambo , possibly orchestrated Pictures at an Exhibition himself . And who knows which works he might have conceived after he died . such as operas based other episodes in Russian history etc . No doubt his premature death deprived us of what would have been some amazing masterpieces !


Not Salammbo, he gave up on that one fifteen years before he died. So he used the good music (such as Joshua) again. Recycling, his carbon footprint was good, even if his ethanol one wasn't.

I reckon he'd have had problems with more operas, and would have turned more and more to Song as his medium.


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## CnC Bartok (Jun 5, 2017)

Ethereality said:


> Do _not_ tell either party about this, or I'm so grounded.


Did you do that yourself? That's remarkably brilliant!!!


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

The thing is, in order for M to live much longer, he would have to have been a much cleaner living non-alcoholic. And therefore a different person. So how can we know whether he would have written even what he did compose, let alone anything additional and different? 
I would love to think that he would have gone on absorbing the new harmonic ideas that were developing in France, producing work to new formats (imagine Mussorgsky's Images). However, it's pure, rather hapless, fantasy.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> Ludest van Beethovorgsky?


He looks a bit like a middle-aged Orson Welles.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> Beethovorgsky?


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

Gawd. Mussorgsky was SUCH an underachiever. 

If he'd have lived twice as long, if he'd managed to live to the ripe old age of 84, I expect that he'd have composed twice as much music.

So, instead of his Opus numbers going up to 12, they might have gone all the way up to Op. 24.


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## Aggelos (May 29, 2009)

Had Mussorgsky lived, he would have rooted for Leonidas Leonardi orchestration.
I think he would have been a proponent of the Leonardi version









*Luck's Music Library Leonidas Leonardi Version*

https://www.wisemusicclassical.com/work/31287/

Musorgsky composed the piano suite Pictures from an exhibition as a tribute to his artist friend Victor Hartmann, who died suddenly in 1873. 
The evocative titles of the various pieces, together with the instinctive feeling among many musicians that here was an orchestral piece struggling to break out of its two-stave format, occasioned many orchestrations: the first made in 1891 by Mikhail Tushmalov, a pupil of Rimsky-Korsakov, and featuring seven of the 'Pictures'.

Sir Henry Wood made a highly picturesque arrangement in 1915, setting all the 'Pictures' but only the first of the 'Promenades'. The first absolutely complete orchestration came from Leo Funtek, a Slovenian musician working in Finland, where he conducted the Helsinki Philharmonic in the première of his version in 1922. That same year, a version for 'Salon Orchestra' appeared in Berlin, transcribed by Giuseppe Becce, a noted composer and arranger of music for silent movies.

Simultaneously, what was to become the most celebrated orchestration of all was in progress-that by Maurice Ravel. It was commissioned by the Russian conductor Serge Koussevitzky, who knew of Ravel's admiration for Musorgsky. The first performance of the French composer's version of Pictures from an exhibition took place in Paris on 3 May 1923, and it was received with high acclaim.

At that time, the publishing firm of Bessel were still jealously guarding their rights in Musorgsky's works, and they reluctantly gave Koussevitzky permission to perform Ravel's independently-created orchestral version, on the condition that he would not allow anyone else to conduct it. Their conviction was that an arrangement of one of their piano publications would bring them no commercial advantage.

That Bessel were mistaken became evident as the Ravel orchestration proved ever more successful. Since Koussevitzky was to retain sole proprietary conducting rights in his commission for a period of five years, Bessel hastened to bring out a rival orchestration of their own. This they did by approaching a precocious twenty-one-year-old Russian-born pianist named Leonidas Leonardi who was at that time studying orchestration with Ravel himself. Doubtless the publishers were hoping for an even greater triumph from the pupil than had been achieved by the master, but in this they were to be disappointed. Although Leonardi dedicated his version to Stravinsky and conducted the Lamoureux Orchestra in its Paris première in June 1924, with the US première being given under Walter Damrosch the following December, it has remained in virtual obscurity ever since. (Undaunted by the failure of this particular project, however, Leonardi immediately took up residence in the United States and pursued a varied musical career in theatre, films, radio and the concert hall which lasted until his death in New York in March 1967.)


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Pat Fairlea said:


> I would love to think that *he would have gone on absorbing the new harmonic ideas that were developing in France*, producing work to new formats (imagine Mussorgsky's Images). However, it's pure, rather hapless, fantasy.


Not sure what you're talking about here. It was the other way around. Mussorgsky influenced the French, particularly Debussy.


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

. . . he would have died older.


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## pianozach (May 21, 2018)

Aggelos said:


> Had Mussorgsky lived, he would have rooted for Leonidas Leonardi orchestration.
> I think he would have been a proponent of the Leonardi version
> 
> 
> ...


Watched the film *John Wick* yesterday. The Antagonist in the film, a Russian mafioso, repeatedly referred to John Wick by the nickname given to him for his ruthlessness as an assassin: *Baba Yaga*, which they translated as the Boogeyman.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

pianozach said:


> Watched the film *John Wick* yesterday. The Antagonist in the film, a Russian mafioso, repeatedly referred to John Wick by the nickname given to him for his ruthlessness as an assassin: *Baba Yaga*, which they translated as the Boogeyman.


That's a pretty funny translation, given that Baba Yaga is an elderly female witch.


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

I heard the surviving music he wrote to "Salambo " on LP ages ago in a performance conducted by the Hungarian conductor Zoltan Pesko, who passed away a few weeks ago. It was certainly interesting to hear .


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

hammeredklavier said:


>


Fantastic movie about the lives of composers as seen through the perspective of dogs.


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

pianozach said:


> Gawd. Mussorgsky was SUCH an underachiever.
> 
> If he'd have lived twice as long, if he'd managed to live to the ripe old age of 84, I expect that he'd have composed twice as much music.
> 
> So, instead of his Opus numbers going up to 12, they might have gone all the way up to Op. 24.


He was a slacker yo...But I adore his ''Paintings(!) at an exibition''...:devil::angel:


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

silentio said:


> We often heard the questions, "what if Mozart or Schubert had lived longer?". But let's not forget about Mussorgsky, who died terribly young at the age of 42.
> 
> Now given the genius that he demonstrated in _Boris Godunov_ and _Pictures at the Exhibition_, and suppose that alcoholism hadn't gotten into too much his way, how would a Mussorgsky that was productive until his 60's or 70's have impacted the late 19th-century and early 20th-century music?
> 
> Some ground-breaking reformation to the form of opera that would be equivalent to Wagner's _gesamtkunstwerk_? More epic concertos and tone poems? Or even an entirely new musical language?


Reminder that Rossini's large operatic output was all completed prior to his retirement at age 37. Mozart, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Pergolesi, Purcell, Chopin, and others all died young too, with more to their names. I don't think Mussorgsky would have miraculously obtained some refreshed work ethic later in life. He would probably just have more unfinished operas.


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## annaw (May 4, 2019)

Couchie said:


> Reminder that Rossini's large operatic output was all completed prior to his retirement at age 37. Mozart, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Pergolesi, Purcell, Chopin, and others all died young too, with more to their names. I don't think Mussorgsky would have miraculously obtained some refreshed work ethic later in life. He would probably just have more unfinished operas.


Add Bellini to the list! He was 34 when he died but had already written _La sonnambula_, _ Norma_ anf _I puritani_ alongside with his lesser-known operas.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

annaw said:


> Add Bellini to the list!


Also Weber, who died at 40


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

Couchie said:


> Reminder that Rossini's large operatic output was all completed prior to his retirement at age 37. Mozart, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Pergolesi, Purcell, Chopin, and others all died young too, with more to their names. I don't think Mussorgsky would have miraculously obtained some refreshed work ethic later in life. He would probably just have more unfinished operas.


I sometimes cant fathom how on earth was it possible 4 these geniuses 2 do so much and die even younger than me now...Its like a thought of space, incomprehensible...They must have had a military discipline in life, a gr8 working ethic and NO INTERNET 2 steal their time and energy!


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