CLXXIX. MUSSORGSKY, Modest (1839-1881)
My notebook was perched on the ledge of Nadia Boulanger's piano. I was trying to concentrate on my figured bass realizations, while my hands tried to reproduce what I had written.
I felt a slap on my wrist.
"Are you unzer di tabla?"
"I beg your pardon, Madamoiselle?"
"Are you unzer di table, or what?"
I usually had no problems understanding her English, which she insisted on using with all her American pupils. But now I was at a loss.
"Unzer di tabla?
She pointed to the emptiness of the intricate 19th-century carpet that lay beneath the piano.
"Under the table?" I gasped, finally understanding.
"Yes, just so." She relaxed and pulled on my beard so that she could see my face a little (she was almost completely blind) ...
"I tell you story," she began. "My mother (Raissa Myshetskaya, a Russian princess) used to have the big dinner parties, and once she invited Mussorgsky. By dessert, he was unzer di tabla. He was such a drunkard."
Are you drunk?
She had returned to her previous stern pedagogical posture, and was pointing at my notebook propped up on the piano ledge, as if it were a diseased carcass.
I immediately saw my mistake. Parallel fifths. About the worst sin one could commit in chorale realizations. I grabbed my pencil and quickly rewrote the alto and tenor parts.
"Ah, that's better," she smiled.
Everything was always better once you had learned something.
**
The history behind the writing, performance and re-orchestration of this opera -- and its many "versions" is beyond complicated. Rimsky-Korsakov, Ippolitov-Ivanov and Shostakovich all worked on it, as some point.
"Mussorgsky has marvelously orchestrated moments, but I see no sin in my work. I didn't touch the successful parts, but there are many unsuccessful parts because he lacked mastery of the craft, which comes only through time spent on your backside, no other way." -- Shostakovich
This appears to be the 1908 version, worked on by Rimsky-Korsakov.
The Coronation Scene (15:05)
This is the only Russian/English libretto I could find online.
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