Talk:Modest Mussorgsky

Intro revisions

• Cleanup of name and dates to conform with other wiki bios (e.g. strike verbose "also spelled...")
• Refer to "The Mighty Handful" and their "mission" since (1) Intro long claimed him an "innovator" without hinting why, (2) Readers, presumably here to broaden their horizons, should have an immediate reference to his contemporaries, and (3) gravitas
• Added reference to folklore influence
• The previous notion that only his works with lyrics ("songs and operas") had historical or nationalistic bases is false
• Strengthened tone as a nationalist and in general. He's one of the most important figures in Russian music and of significant importance in the whole of musical history.

I'm not sure what to make of or do with that "For many years..." text. I don't think it quite fit the flow of the old text either.

These are fairly significant revisions to what I viewed as a stale introduction. I'm particularly interested in feedback from previous editors. CleffedUp 12:44, 2 April 2006 (UTC)

Can you add pronunciation for both the first name and the last name. Is Modest pronounced with a long o or a short o?

• I second this. If someone provides a recording of the pronunciation (or a link to one), I can transcribe to IPA. Benjamin.d.oakes (talk) 18:19, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
  • pronounced /mo'dɛst/, short "o". Not /'modɛst/, but /mo'dɛst/. In Russian pronounced like /mo'dɛst 'mʊsərgskɪj/. I'm not sure if i can provide a prooflink, but that's how we name him here, in Russia. And no, "rgsk" is not easy to pronounce for Russians too. --188.120.247.10 (talk) 06:46, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Portrait

Should we rather use the full portrait in this article? [1]? --Irpen 06:41, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

Good question. I like the detail (current version) as it highlights his face. --Viriditas | Talk 11:16, 5 November 2005 (UTC)

It is not fair to put a portrait of ill composer (painted in the hospital a few days before his death), even if created by a great master, to the beginning of the article. There are a lot of pictures of real Mussorgsky showing him in various periods of his life. It would be better to find another portrait or photo, and move this one to the middle or end of the article. --Yms 18:51, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Took a cue from Yms. Added portrait of composer in his prime. Moved the invaluable (but not necessarily representative) portrait by Repin to the corresponding biographical section of the article. Hope this meets with collective approval. Ivan Velikii 22:18, 8 July 2006 (UTC)

I think that is an *excellent* decision. I hope people will stick with it. Pfistermeister

I am disappointed the decision was made to revert the main graphic for this article to the Repin portrait. Yes, as Yms pointed out, it is a great portrait by a master. It is colorful, and is used by many other reference works. But is that the way to introduce people to the great composer? Although M's alcoholic addiction is an unavoidable and necessary topic in his biography and the history of his musical output, remembering him primarily as a dishevelled drunk is unfair and overshadows his years of productivity and contributions to music and art. Please reconsider. Ivan Velikii 17:10, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I just killed a "dead link" --- coded for a portrait that does not seem to exist. I wasn't logged in at the time. No political or artistic intent ... just though we should not have a dead link. Renaissongsman (talk) 00:37, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

Defacing / vandalizing

There has been recent vandalizing of this page. Please keep an eye on this article. Itzcuauhtli 18:48, 27 October 2006 (UTC)

Lock the article please

Some morons are vandalizing this article. Please look out for their IP addresses and give sanctions to these guys. thanks. 61.9.74.19 20:55, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Infobox

Модест Петрович Мусоргский Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky
Background information
Birth name	Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky
Occupation(s)	Composer Civil Servant

In view of the strong developing consensus against using popular music style infoboxes for articles about composers, I am moving the infobox here for discussion, comments etc., while retaining the photo on the article page. --Kleinzach 00:53, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Is there centralized discussion on the topic? Or an attempt to make a composers infobox? Not critical at all, just curious... --JayHenry 01:00, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

See discussion on the Composers Project Infoboxes_for_composers. --Kleinzach 01:36, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Hmm... thanks for the link. An interesting debate. The problems being raised about infoboxes are not particular to just composers but really any historical figures. The dual birthdates on this infobox (or even the "Occupation:Civil Servant") are both annyoing enough to warrant removal IMO. Thanks! --JayHenry 02:07, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Not useful. The article content is very decent and quite sufficient. Die boxen. Moreschi ^Talk 16:42, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

Was anyone else tempted to add "alcoholic" to the box's list of Mussorgsky's occupations? After all, an encyclopaedia's chief concern should be accuracy ; --Folantin 09:11, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

1) Infoboxes are good in general. However, using popular music boxes is ridiculous. Why are the classical music editors not leading on this issue, rather than following? 2) What, may I ask (JayHenry), is so annoying about dual dates and Musorgsky's occupation? 3) And surely, Folantin, you are being facetious, aren't you? Ivan Velikii 05:51, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Maybe I'm just trying to start an infobox revolution, but now that it is literally 16 years later, is there a consensus? I personally am in favor, as it gives a great overview and makes it easy for the average Wikipedia reader, and also many of the "popular" composers have their own infobox (as well as a specific "composer" infobox). Pacamah (talk) 07:05, 9 June 2023 (UTC)

The current consensus is that it is established on a case-by-case basis, not based on what other articles do. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:53, 10 June 2023 (UTC)

Why?

Why the double "s" in his name? In Russian there's only one "c(=s in English)" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.10.234.15 (talk) 19:21, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

It looks like the most common transliteration is an older one. Until recently, when they changed names from Russian to English it was a pretty informal system. My best guess is that Mussorgsky was used so people would pronounce the 's' sound correctly. If there had been only one 's' many English speakers would likely have pronounced his name "Muzorgsky." The extra 's' is for emphasis. It's probably similar to how Смирновъ in English becomes Smirnoff with two f's. --JayHenry 20:22, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

And why Sergei Rachmaninoff used the -off spelling in the West. A strict transliteration would end with -ov, but that's not how final вs are pronounced (they're devoiced to -of). A single -of would also be mispronounced by many as -ov. -- JackofOz (talk) 00:05, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Probably similar to Strass + Burg and Moss + Hart. --138.163.0.41 (talk) 14:34, 25 December 2011 (UTC)

Antisemitism?

There were rumors about Mussorgsky being an antisemite. Yet, Considering his "jewish song", "Samuel Golndenberg" and such, it seems that he was quite interested in jewish music. Moreover, I think his friend, Hartmann, was jewish. Are there evidences of any kind? 132.66.234.222 19:19, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Composer project review

I've reviewed this article as part of the Composers project review of its B-class articles. The article is B-class; it needs attention primarily to reception of his work over time, and to inline citations; read the detailed review on the comments page. Questions or comments can be left here or on my talk page. Magic♪piano 20:25, 9 December 2008 (UTC)

Oedipus in Athens

I'm sorry, but this is not an opera, and most certainly not "operas". I'm going to correct it AdamChapman (talk) 22:30, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Quotations

Why we don't move them to wikiquote? It's a nonsense to keep them here. User:Albus severus (talk) 05:05, 16 April 2009 (UTC)

Someone marked this as a quotefarm today, and I agree. I moved the quotes to Wikiquote. Rather than deleting all the quotes about Mussorgsky, I found that they made for a pretty coherent picture of the reception and criticism of Mussorgsky's works, and so have restyled those quotes into such a section, consistent, I think, with WP:CRITICISM. Further tweaking welcomed. TJRC (talk) 19:57, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

I removed the quotes from the Wikiquote article because no citations were provided, and they were already listed on the article's talk page to be researched. If anyone knows of verifiable sources for the quotes, help with citing them at Wikiquote would be appreciated. ~ Ningauble (talk) 20:31, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for that. I had no further sources than were present in this article (e.g., a citation to a particular letter, but not to any book or other source where the letter is printed). In case anyone is thinking that the deletion from Wikiquote is a good reason to re-add them to this article, I'd disagree. The lack of verifiable sources is no less of a problem in Wikipedia than it is in Wikiquote. TJRC (talk) 20:38, 8 May 2009 (UTC)

Ravel's orchestration of Pictures at an Exhibition

The fact that some of Mussorgsky's works are most generally known in the form of orchestrations by others is mentioned in the introduction, but, unless I missed it, this is not developed in more detail later in the article. For the general reader, the fact that Pictures at an Exhibition was originally a solo piano piece, later orchestrated by Ravel, would be useful to know. Put it this way, until very recently, I had assumed that Mussorgsky was responsible for the orchestral version of that piece. Boynstye —Preceding undated comment added 23:40, 10 July 2009 (UTC).

This article doesn't deal with Pictures at an Exhibition in any significant level of detail. That's treated in Pictures at an Exhibition, where there's quite a bit of discussion of the various orchestrations. TJRC (talk) 00:07, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Criticism section

All quotes require sources, and if you are going to pick and choose criticism from primary sources, you need to show that it is notable with secondary sources. Viriditas (talk) 00:27, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, and I'd have to add that you'd never know how popular much of his work has been for over a century - and deservedly so - from the tone of the article and the rawness of the 'criticism' section. The 'red-nose' picture, for example: what's the point here, to compliment the acidity of the text? What's next, a picture of Beethoven in a nightgown holding a wooden stick to his piano in his teeth, with a moldy bowl of mac and cheese sitting nearby? Have mercy. Twang (talk) 18:19, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

On a separate question, it appears to me that the Lyadov quotation is very favorable. He says that Mussorgsky's music should not be "regularized" because it has unique good qualities. Anyhow, why is there a "Criticism" section and not a "Reception" section with criticism and the many favorable remarks about Mussorgsky? Zaslav (talk) 18:54, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Karevo's location

Is Karevo "south-south-east of Saint Petersburg" as the article claims? Shouldn't the direction be southWEST? Check it out. Rammer (talk) 02:40, 29 September 2009 (UTC)

Spelling of the name

The following was inserted in the article by SingingZombie, I'm moving it here...

CORRECT NAME: The above paragraph contains a very common error. In fact there is no "g" in Mussorsky's name in Russian, neither written nor pronounced. The correct spelling is "Мусорский" with no "г". In fact the correct Russian pronounciation is "MOOSer-ski", with the accent on the first syllable.[Ref: See any Russian dictionary or music-textbook, or, ask any Russian, or any student of Russian.]

I disagree per Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people): this is the English wikipedia, so we use English spellings by default and cannot go beyond what the referenced works use. All the cited refs spell with a "g" so we need substantial cites of comparable quality to change it, or at least reliable sources to support mentioning this alternate spelling. DMacks (talk) 02:09, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Pictures at an Exhibition recording

Hi, is there a good reason why pictures at an exhibition is represented in audio on this page as an arrangement for 2 pianos? I feel this piece should be represented on this page in the format that Mussorgsky wrote it for, which was solo piano. --James dude2000 (talk) 08:40, 1 August 2012 (UTC)

Rimsky-Korsakov's Quote

"Yes, Mussorgsky is little short of an idiot."

I don't know whether this quote is real, or if it was made up by a random guy to mislead people. If it is real, can you please site your sources? If it is not real, THE POSTER OF THIS QUOTE ON WIKIPEDIA SHOULD BE BANNED FROM EDITING WIKIPEDIA! Can you please help us? And by us, I mean everybody in the world that will read this splendid article. Just help the world. OK? Shizzlecraft1 (talk) 21:42, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

I see the quotation from Mily Balakirev, in reply to a similar sentiment from Stasov, but I cannot find this quotation attributed to Rimsky-Korsakov. Could you help me locate the spot you mean? Whether or not this is a case of mistaken identity, you are of course perfectly correct: Sources are not optional for cases like this on Wikipedia, and there is a simple method of dealing with them by inserting a "citation needed" tag.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 22:22, 27 June 2015 (UTC)

FWIW, the Stasov comment and Balikirev reply were removed from wikiquote:Modest Mussorgsky in 2009 as inadequately sourced; see the talk page there. I see I commented that I had no access to JSTOR to check on them. I have access now, I'll see if I can find that. TJRC (talk) 18:59, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

I've added cites for all three quotes being discussed here: Stasov's, Balikirev's and Rimski's. TJRC (talk) 21:09, 29 June 2015 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Modest Mussorgsky/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

Comment(s)

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==Composers Project Assessment of Modest Mussorgsky: 2008-12-9== This is an assessment of article Modest Mussorgsky by a member of the Composers project, according to its assessment criteria. This review was done by Magicpiano. If an article is well-cited, the reviewer is assuming that the article reflects reasonably current scholarship, and deficiencies in the historical record that are documented in a particular area will be appropriately scored. If insufficient inline citations are present, the reviewer will assume that deficiencies in that area may be cured, and that area may be scored down. Adherence to overall Wikipedia standards (WP:MOS, WP:WIAGA, WP:WIAFA) are the reviewer's opinion, and are not a substitute for the Wikipedia's processes for awarding Good Article or Featured Article status. ===Origins/family background/studies=== Does the article reflect what is known about the composer's background and childhood? If s/he received musical training as a child, who from, is the experience and nature of the early teachers' influences described? Good ===Early career=== Does the article indicate when s/he started composing, discuss early style, success/failure? Are other pedagogic and personal influences from this time on his/her music discussed? Good ===Mature career=== Does the article discuss his/her adult life and composition history? Are other pedagogic and personal influences from this time on his/her music discussed? Good ===List(s) of works=== Are lists of the composer's works in WP, linked from this article? If there are special catalogs (e.g. Köchel for Mozart, Hoboken for Haydn), are they used? If the composer has written more than 20-30 works, any exhaustive listing should be placed in a separate article. Good ===Critical appreciation=== Does the article discuss his/her style, reception by critics and the public (both during his/her life, and over time)? Style and influence are covered, as is critical reception by peers; public reception and historical perspective are poorly covered. ===Illustrations and sound clips=== Does the article contain images of its subject, birthplace, gravesite or other memorials, important residences, manuscript pages, museums, etc? Does it contain samples of the composer's work (as composer and/or performer, if appropriate)? (Note that since many 20th-century works are copyrighted, it may not be possible to acquire more than brief fair use samples of those works, but efforts should be made to do so.) If an article is of high enough quality, do its images and media comply with image use policy and non-free content policy? (Adherence to these is needed for Good Article or Featured Article consideration, and is apparently a common reason for nominations being quick-failed.) Good ===References, sources and bibliography=== Does the article contain a suitable number of references? Does it contain sufficient inline citations? (For an article to pass Good Article nomination, every paragraph possibly excepting those in the lead, and every direct quotation, should have at least one footnote.) If appropriate, does it include Further Reading or Bibliography beyond the cited references? Article has references. Numerous direct quotes are not inline-cited, ditto some whole paragraphs. ===Structure and compliance with WP:MOS=== Does the article comply with Wikipedia style and layout guidelines, especially WP:MOS, WP:LEAD, WP:LAYOUT, and possibly WP:SIZE? (Article length is not generally significant, although Featured Articles Candidates may be questioned for excessive length.) Needs copyediting, especially consistency in spelling names. ===Things that may be necessary to pass a Good Article review=== Article requires more inline citations (WP:CITE) Article lead needs work (WP:LEAD) (see summary) ===Summary=== This is a fairly nice biography of a composer. It covers his life, personally, professionally, and compositionally. The style and influence of him and his music are covered well. Where the article lacks is in covering public reception of his works, and some historical perspective (how his music has been received over time, and possibly geography as well). The lead mentions that his original scorings are being recovered; this should be elaborated in the body. The article appears to contain use adequate reference material. There are insufficient inline citations for a GA or FA review; whole paragraphs are uncited. There are also direct quotes that are uncited, which would quick-fail any formal review. The gallery of photos at the bottom is not particularly helpful, due to their similarity (to each other). One of them should probably replace one of the Boris Godunov images. The article will need to be copyedited, especially to get consistency in the spelling of some of the names. Article is B-class; content and form both need a little work. Magic♪piano 20:23, 9 December 2008 (UTC) ==Comment== I confess! - I have just deleted the awful melodramatic 2nd para of the header section, which was a typical Volkov flight, fine in its way but absurdly POV for an encyclopaedia! Tather duisturbing that the only source apart from Volkov in the article bibliography is Brown - there are many others.....--Smerus (talk) 12:09, 14 December 2008 (UTC)

Last edited at 12:09, 14 December 2008 (UTC). Substituted at 00:15, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

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The bottom line

Let's cut it short. Practically all major (and lesser) pianists have played Mussorgsky during the last 100 years. This can be documented ad nauseam. One of the most famous concert of one the most famous famous piano players (Sviatloslav Richter) main piece is Pictures of an Exhibition. You can go a long way, and beyond, with his music. The article is bland as is. Mussorgsky is a major composer. Period.

And sorry, but "Mussorgsky's single-movement orchestral work Night on Bald Mountain enjoyed broad popular recognition in the 1940s when it was featured, in tandem with Schubert's 'Ave Maria', in the Disney film Fantasia." is too US-centric. Can we think and assess music independently of Disney (even if tasteful) usage? Even if we can acknowledge the positive influence of the diffusion of that music by Disney.

Again, Mussorgsky is a major World composer, regardless of what Russians (who never forgot him) and Americans (who think they rediscovered him) think of him. Can we agree to that? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Frederic Y Bois (talk • contribs) 21:22, 15 January 2019 (UTC)

AI-produced photo

Why is the child portrait AI-enhanced? The original is good enough. Let's not invent history. 2603:8000:F201:2879:988D:8D9C:2A62:D13D (talk) 05:39, 2 December 2021 (UTC)

I killed it. It's the same photo as File:Modest-Mussorgsky-young.jpg, already included higher up in the article, and the AI-dehancement detracts from the article, it does not help it. TJRC (talk) 21:12, 3 December 2021 (UTC)