Presentation

After Boris Godunov, Mussorgsky continued to explore and question Russian history. This time, he drew inspiration from the 1682 Moscow Revolt –the year in which Peter the Great was crowned Czar. Peter wanted to reform Russia, westernize it, and had to confront the resistance of both the nobility and the Church. Under the leadership of Prince Ivan Khovansky, the military corps of the Streltsy attacks the Kremlin with the support of the Old Believers and their leader, Dosifei. The revolt is swamped in blood and the Old Believers immolate themselves in the forest. Out of this savage and monumental portrait emerges the humanity of the stern Dosifei, the patriarch with a voice from beyond the grave, and Marfa the soothsayer. Mussorgsky set this cruel story about a Russia still under the yoke of its archaic past to a fascinatingly sombre and entrancing score —music that seems to come from the very depths of the ages. Left unfinished, the work was first performed in an arrangement by Rimski-Korsakov. It was then revised by Dmitri Shostakovich in 1959 to be closer to the intentions of the composer.