From Publishers Weekly
Brown, author of the standard biography of Tchaikovsky and professor emeritus of musicology at the University of Southampton, brings his many years of Russian music writing to this biography of Russian composer Musorgsky. Most famous for his opera Boris Godunov and his orchestral piece St. John's Night on the Bare Mountain (made popular as the climax of Disney's Fantasia), Musorgsky was a member of a group of nationalist composers often called "the Mighty Handful," whose members included Tchaikovsky. Brown devotes major chapters of his book to the composition and music of Musorgsky's operas, such as the various versions of Boris as well as the unfinished Khovanshchina and Sorochintsky Fair, which were worked on by other composers after his death. Brown's deep interest lies in the music rather than the man, for he pays little interest to Musorgsky's medical problems, especially the "dementia" and depressions of his early years, which Brown considers to be the results of the composer's alcoholism, a disease that killed him at the age of 42. And while Brown does not have the rhetorical panache of Richard Taruskin (Musorgsky), he refrains from musicological jargon or overly technical musical analyses, bringing together a solid biography of the composer. 3 line illustrations and 18 halftones not seen by PW.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
The latest addition to Oxford's "Master Musicians" series, this is actually an update of a 1946 volume on Mussorgsky from Oxford. Musicologist Brown (Mikhail Glinka; Tchaikovsky) clearly knows late 19th-century Russian music and society and accurately portrays his subject as an amateur with no conservatory training in composition who nonetheless became one of the most revered of the group of Russian nationalist composers known as "The Five." His early death at age 42, brought on by alcohol poisoning, was a tragedy of immeasurable proportions, as he left incomplete two operas, Khovanshchina and Sorochintsy Fair. The book is well organized: the author seamlessly weaves perceptive but not overly arcane musical analysis with rich biographical detail. Three chapters are devoted to a detailed discussion of Mussorgsky's operatic masterpiece, Boris Godunov, but several other important works, such as Night on Bald Mountain (here referred to by its British title, St. John's Night on Bare Mountain) and Songs and Dances of Death, are given less than their due. The bibliography, which contains more than a dozen Russian-language sources, is reasonably thorough and up-to-date, and it includes a good deal of the writing on Mussorgsky by the brilliant and controversial American musicologist Richard Taruskin. Overall, this is an indispensable addition to the scanty material in English on this great Russian composer. Highly recommended for all collections.
Larry Lipkis, Moravian Coll., Bethlehem, PACopyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
