Q.1
As with many great composers, Mussorgsky had a young start with his music. What was his first significant help with this?
  • His father was a good-amateur violinist
  • His mother was a trained pianist
  • His uncle was the local bandmaster
  • They lived next door to the organist of the nearby church
Q.2
Which of these is the most accurate summary of Mussorgsky's early musical milestones?
  • He began piano lessons aged 6, and had played his first concerto before he turned 10
  • He learned the violin from the age of 4 and appeared in public, in a quartet, while aged 9
  • He joined the church choir, also learnt the organ and accompanied his first service on the eve of his 11th birthday
  • He borrowed a spare trumpet while he was 5 and played his first public solo at the age of 8
Q.3
In which Russian city did he go away to school during his teenage years?
  • Moscow
  • St Petersburg
  • Magnetogorsk
  • Murmansk
Q.4
At the age of 17, Mussorgsky was working in a military hospital where he met a colleague just 5 years his senior: this other man, though working as a chemist and surgeon, was to become a friend and fellow-composer in a group known as 'the Five'. Who was he?
  • Nikolai Balakirev
  • Alexander Borodin
  • Cesar Cui
  • Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov
Q.5
Mussorgsky, too, while writing and playing plenty of music, needed a 'day job'. What was his main career?
  • He was a professional commissioned soldier
  • He was a Civil Servant
  • He became a senior hospital administrator
  • He worked in administration on the new railways
Q.6
Many great composers have had to struggle with personal difficulties, no different from 'ordinary folk'; what was Mussorgsky's particular problem?
  • A close family tragedy during his early childhood
  • He had a chronic respiratory condition that often left him painfully short of breath
  • He became a serious alcoholic
  • His wife was unable to bear them any children
Q.7
Another of Mussorgsky's best-loved works is a suite of piano pieces called , written in response to a memorial show of paintings by Hartmann, an architect friend who had recently died. (The pictures since seem to have been dis-united and lost track of: it would be interesting to see them again!) Mussorgsky's original version was for piano solo, but the set has become even more widely known in an orchestral version by which French composer?
  • Claude Debussy
  • Maurice Ravel
  • Cecile Chaminade
  • Camille Saint-Saens
Q.8
Mussorgsky also wrote an opera based on the life of a Russian hero: which one?
  • Eugene Onegin
  • Taras Bulba
  • Boris Godunov
  • Anton Pavlov
Q.9
While there are a gravestone and memorials elsewhere, the patch of land where Mussorgsky's remains are buried was redeveloped in the Soviet era. What stands there now?
  • A supermarket
  • A petrol station
  • A postbox and public telephone
  • A bus stop
Q.10
In which year had Mussorgsky finished composing ?
  • 1865
  • 1867
  • 1869
  • 1871
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