Читать книгу The Mentor: Russian Music, Vol. 4, Num. 18, Serial No. 118, November 1, 1916 - Finck Henry Theophilus - Страница 4

THREE

Moussorgsky’s artistic creed might be summed up in one sentence – he was devoted absolutely to the principle of “art for life’s sake.” This is quite the opposite of “Art for art’s sake.” Moussorgsky looked on musical art not as an end in itself, but as a means of vital expression. He was a full-blooded realist, and his music throbs with life.

Modeste Petrovich Moussorgsky was born on the estate of his father at Karevo on March 28, 1839. His father was a man of moderate means, and the boy spent his first ten years in the country and in close touch with the peasants. This early environment inspired his later feelings of sympathy with the land and its people. Long before he could play the piano he tried to reproduce songs that he heard among the peasants. His mother was pleased at this, and began to give him lessons on the piano when he was still a young child. At the age of seven he was able to play some of the smaller pieces of Liszt. Sometimes he even improvised musical settings for the fairy tales that his nurse told him.