Canon
Where to start with Mussorgsky
Essential works to know this composer by — spread across their styles-
OrchestralNight on Bald Mountain
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KeyboardPictures at an Exhibition
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StageBoris Godunov — Opera
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VocalA Society Tale: The Goat
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ChamberGopak
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StageKhovanshchina — Opera
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KeyboardA Children's Prank, scherzo
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KeyboardA Tear
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KeyboardAlbumleaf: Meditation
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VocalAngel vopiyashe, for a cappella chorus
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VocalAt Daddy's Gate, for chorus
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VocalBez solntsa
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KeyboardChildhood Memories
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OrchestralDawn on the Moscow River, prelude
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VocalDetskaya
Listening guide
Hand-curated paths into Mussorgsky's catalogueMost Popular
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Pictures at an Exhibition (Ravel orchestration)
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Night on Bald Mountain (Rimsky-Korsakov version)
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Boris Godunov — Coronation Scene
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Songs and Dances of Death
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The Great Gate of Kiev
Most Acclaimed
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Boris Godunov (1869 original version)raw, without love interest — Mussorgsky’s original before Rimsky cleaned it up
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Songs and Dances of Death
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Pictures at an Exhibition (original piano version)
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Sunless (song cycle)
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The Nursery (song cycle)
Most Weird
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Sunless (song cycle)described as the most profoundly pessimistic song cycle ever written — six songs in near-total darkness
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The Nurserysongs from a child’s perspective — the domestic world made strange
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Boris Godunov (1869 version)no love story, no conventional opera structure — Mussorgsky’s raw original; Rimsky-Korsakov rewrote it to make it more acceptable
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Khovanshchina (opera — unfinished)Russian schismatics in 17th century — completed by Rimsky; the original ending had them all burn themselves alive
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Pictures at an Exhibition — original piano versionwithout Ravel’s orchestration, the piano original is actually stranger and more primitive
Similar composers
Same era, overlapping styles — by genre & period affinityWorks 64
- Orchestral
- ● Night on Bald Mountain
- Dawn on the Moscow River, prelude
- Festive March
- Golitsyn's Jouney
- Intermezzo in modo classico in B minor
- Keyboard
- ● Pictures at an Exhibition
- A Children's Prank, scherzo
- A Tear
- Albumleaf: Meditation
- Childhood Memories
- Duma on a theme of V. A. Loginov, for piano
- Impromptu passionné
- In the Village, quasi fantasia
- Intermezzo in modo classico
- Jeux d'enfants-les quatre coins, for piano
- Meditation, 'Razdumye', for piano
- On the Southern Shore of the Crimea
- Porte-enseigne Polka
- Rêverie
- Scherzo in B flat major
- Scherzo in C sharp minor, for piano
- Shveya, for piano
- Sonata in C major, for piano 4-hands
- Souvenir d'enfance
- The Seamstress
- Une larme, for piano
- Stage
- Boris Godunov — Opera
- Khovanshchina — Opera
- Khovanshchina — Opera
- Khovanshchina
- Khovanshchina — Opera
- Khovanshchina — Opera
- Oedipus in Athens
- Salammbô
- Sorochintsï Fair
- Vocal
- A Society Tale: The Goat
- Angel vopiyashe, for a cappella chorus
- At Daddy's Gate, for chorus
- Bez solntsa
- Detskaya
- Eh, My Boundless Freedom, for chorus
- Gde tï, zvezdochka?
- Gopak
- Iz slyoz moikh
- Joshua, for chorus
- Klassik
- Kolïbel'naya Eryomushki
- Kolïbel'naya pesnya
- Mephistopheles' Song of the Flea
- Na Dnepre
- Noch
- Ozornik
- Seminarist
- Softly the Spirit Flew up to Heaven
- Songs and Dances of Death — Song cycle
- Sorochintsï Fair: Dream of the Peasant Gritsko, for chorus and orchestra
- Strekotun'ya beloboka
- The Destruction of Sennacherib, for chorus
- The Street Urchin
- Yarema's Song
- Yevreyskaya pesnya
- Chamber
- Gopak
- Ukranian Dance, for violin and piano
- Une Larme, for cello and piano