The descent of the Russian aristocracy in Modest Mussorgsky’s opera Boris Godunov seemed to mirror Mussorgsky’s own descent. Composer Alexander Borodin, recalling his first meeting with the youthful Mussorgsky, spoke of a fine dandy of a fellow, dashing and handsome in his close-fitting uniform, peppering his pretentious conversation with unnecessary French phrases. But Mussorgsky, this son of Russian nobility, would free-fall into ruin and remake himself into the people’s composer.

Mussorgsky was the youngest son of a wealthy landowning family. He began his study of music at the feet of his mother, herself a pianist, and in 1852, he was sent off to military school. After graduation, he took a commission in the Regiment of Guards, during which time he met Alexander Borodin, whose impressions of the young man were captured above. Mussorgsky stepped up his composing, but it was rough going for him since he had no formal training in composition. He met up with other the other composers whom, along with Mussorgsky and Borodin would make up the group called "The Mighty Five." He met César Cui, also a young military officer who was an amateur composer, and Mili Balakirev, the father of The Mighty Five. He wrote more songs, and studied composition with his new circle of friends. It was inevitable, then, that he would resign from his military commission. He made the break in 1857 and devoted himself exclusively to music. With his family’s money, Mussorgsky had no real cause for concern. He visited Moscow in 1859, reveling in the city’s history and Russianess. Feeling reborn, he plunged deeper into his music and into the Balakirev circle.

Until 1861.

In March of 1861, the serfs were emancipated and Mussorgsky’s serf-owning family suffered a severe financial crisis as a result. Mussorgsky would spend a good deal of the next couple of years on the family estate helping his only surviving brother manage it. When Mussorgsky got back to the city, he was forced to look for work, and settled on a government job at the Ministry of Communications, in the chief engineering department. He changed departments, was promoted several times, dismissed from the Ministry in 1867, and re-instated in the government in 1869.

During his two-year break from the life of a civil servant, Mussorgsky became attracted to the subject of Boris Godunov, based on the play by the great Russian poet Pushkin. He was drawn to the grit and the realism of the subject matter, a man bent on power, and the oppressed Russian people rising up against the aristocracy. Mussorgsky finished the opera in December of 1869, but twice the committee of the Mariinsky Theatre rejected it. Mussorgsky was rooming with Rimsky-Korsakov, a valuable friend who would take up the task of editing Mussorgsky’s posthumous works. Boris was finally performed in 1874, and by this time, Mussorgsky was already at work on another opera, Khovanshchina, about the accession of Peter the Great to the throne. The summer of 1874 saw Mussorgsky’s famous cycle of piano pieces Pictures at an Exhibition.

His health was on the decline. Mussorgsky had battled with alcoholism for quite a while. His employers simply turned a blind eye to his addiction, but the stress was already showing. He had difficulty completing his compositions; in fact Mussorgsky is more famous for what he did not complete than for what he did. He never completed his Khovanshchina before his death resulting from his heavy drinking.

Mussorgsky’s musical legacy can be summed in the idea of human existence and struggle. He was repelled by the notion of art for art’s sake, and saw his music as a way to relate to the Russian masses. Critics have said of his music that it lacks technical polish, and Mussorgsky would have agreed. The goal of music is to tell the truth, to engage in a moment of honesty. His songs sounded like overheard conversations and not the exalted prettied up speech of most vocal pieces. Mussorgsky left the Russian people, raw and unscrubbed, in his music. Mussorgsky himself summed it up: "When I sleep I see them, when I eat I think of them - I can visualize them, integral, big, unpainted, and without any tinsel."