Episode Details

Modest Mussorgsky was born into Russian aristocracy and died in a charity hospital wearing a borrowed dressing gown. Between those points he composed some of the most original music of the nineteenth century — works so unconventional that friends spent decades rewriting them.

This episode traces Mussorgsky from military service through his financial collapse and alcoholism as he produced Pictures at an Exhibition, Boris Godunov, and Night on Bald Mountain.

• Pictures at an Exhibition was inspired by drawings from his dead friend Viktor Hartmann
• Rimsky-Korsakov reorchestrated many of his works, smoothing edges Mussorgsky intended
• Boris Godunov was rejected by the Imperial Theatre and revised multiple times
• His famous portrait by Repin was painted eleven days before his death