Incomplete And Utter History Of Classical Music

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've never really got beyond the sniggering schoolboy stage when it comes to the tide of Mussorgsky's work. As impressive as the piece sounds, I found it very hard to take in the tide, Night on a Bald Mountain. Even when it was modernized to 'bare' - in much the same way that you watch the news on TV, one day, and find out that everyone is now pronouncing a particular word a different way, and you feel like a citizen in the 'Emperor's New Clothes' if you don't go along with it: I'm talking here about words like Nike (which used to rhyme with 'Mike' but apparentiy now is 'Nikey') and Boudicca (which was once 'Boa-da-see-er' and nobody seemed to mind) that seem to change overnight and nobody so much as lets on that it they had ever said them differendy/ Even then, I couldn't seem to get 'bare' witches or, for some reason, bare knights, out of my head. I know, I know, it's probably just me. Still. For now, though, let me join some of die dots and complete the picture from here to the 1867 of Mussorgsky's Nijjht on A Bare Bottom. (Sorry, there it is again. Can't help it, see!)

The main, big wow, my-word-did-you-hear-the-news was from America, namely the end of the Civil War. Very sad end, too, for Abraham Lincoln. He took the Confederate surrender at J» In fact, I heard a radio announcer say 'DyLAN Thomas', just recently, and thought, 'Oh, here we go again, are we all going to have to change this, now?' P $ If you were to guess the meaning of that word, Appomattox, having come across it for the first time, I'm sure you'd plump for a cosmetic operation over a Confederate surrender venue. Just a thought. Appomattox-"?" on April 9th, only to be assassinated five days later. Sad. It was all over bar the shooting, as it were. The American constitution does get its Thirteenth Amendment, though, the abolition of slavery - and not before time. In England, there are a couple of important debuts: die Salvation Army goes into battle for the first time, and WG Grace goes into bat for die first time, both of them, in their own ways, with a war cry - the Sally Army initially going by the name of the Christian Revival Association. Also in 1865, Edward Whymper scales die majestic chiselled features of the Matterhorn, the first of a select and illustrious line that would eventually include Ronald Lihoreau in the late 1950s. Louis Pasteur, no doubt already the toast of Parisian bacchanalian society from his service to wine, probably becomes the toast of French haute couture, too, when he manages to cure silkworm disease, thereby single-handedly saving French silk. Silk hats off to him.

A year on, 1888, and Prussia, Italy and Austria are in a right mess. All over the place, to be honest. Too tortuous to explain now, save to say that, after lashings of jiggery-pokery undertaken for reasons best known to themselves, Schleswig-Holstein becomes part of Prussia. I'm sure it won't end there. What else? Well, TJ Barnardo opens his first home for destitute children, in Stepney, and Swedish chemist Alfred Bernhardt Nobel, the man who gave rise to die peace prize, invents dynamite, the tiling tiiat gives rise to all manner of war, death and destruction. It's an irony that is never lost on me, no matter how often I hear it repeated - tbe fortune that came from dynamite goes to fund over a century and a half of die promotion of peace, amongst other tilings.

A year on, still - 1867 - and Garibaldi marches on Rome, an event that will forever be known in Italy as, wait for it… The March on Rome. Gosh, they were an inventive bunch, weren't they? When he gets to Rome, he is eventually defeated by a combination of French and papal troops. Ah well. No doubt one or other side wasn't quite playing stricdy in accordance with the newly introduced 'Queensberry Rules' of 1867. Anyway. Year out, round 2. (Ding.)

And indeed die last few years have been pretty good for all tilings arty-farty. Somebody called CL Dodgson used the pseudonym Lewis Carroll to write Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Cardinal Newman, writing under the cunning pseudonym of 'Cardinal Newman', comes up with the poem 'The Dream of Gerontius', which will eventually be food for thought for one Mr Elgar. At present, though, little Edward is only, let's see… eight. Awwww, look at him, little love. Eight years old… awww. Still. Handlebar moustache coming on nicely! What else for the arts? Well, Degas has started to paint ballet scenes - could do well - Millais has done The Boyhood of Raleigh (cue bicycle jokes), Dostoevsky has done Crime and Punishment and Email Zola, the first writer to get on the net, has written Therese Raquin. Et bienl On the downside, though, we have lost Rousseau and Ingres. Bof! I think that's about it. Now, though, to paraphrase the great Elvis Aaron Presley, 'One night… with you. Er, and Mussorgsky' Yeah, I know - needs work. Leave it with me and I'll write out parts for The Jordanaires.

So. Mussorgsky. At last, we're here. Always loved the name Mussorgsky. I think it's because, when you are very young, and have no knowledge of repertoire at all, you associate composers with either the sound of their name or the one, maybe two pieces you know by them. With Mussorgsky, it was a bit of both. I loved the brassy sounds of the 'Great Gate of Kiev', and his name seemed to match it perfecdy - a bit brassy, almost as if it were imitating the air as it was blown through as tuba or a horn. MUSSOrgSky! mUSSSSSOfflTrgSky! No? Never mind, then. There was also his first name, which I could never escape - Modest, usually pronounced 'Moe-dest' (as in Five Guys Named Modest), with the accent on the moe. What a groovy, cute name for a composer, I always thought. Modest. Modest! Modest Mussorgsky. Great name.

He was born into land-owning aristocracy and became an officer in the elite Russian Preobrajensky Regiment. Following the emancipation of the serfs in 1861, his family went bankrupt and he was forced into a succession of civil service jobs that left him in poverty. Added to this, he had a drink problem that left him with an official portrait that looked like 'The Dong witfi the Luminous Nose', and you could have forgiven him had he wanted nothing to do with the current vogue for 'Russian nationalism' in music. But not a bit of it. He wanted you to be able to hear 'the people' in his music, as well as being able to hear their stories, too. And it was against that backdrop that, in 1867, he produced what was to become one of his most memorable small works. It's meant to be the music to the events of a midsummer night, a night during which the witches' sabbath is held on a bald mountain, near Kiev - STOP SNIGGERING, FRY MINOR OR I'LL SEND YOU TO SEE MR RUTHERFORD. Now, as I was saying, it's meant to sound like a witches' sabbath, and is probably better known in the version that was reorchestrated by his friend, the composer Rimsky-Korsakov. Night on a Bare/Bald Mountain is one of those pieces that storms out of the traps and hooks you in from the start, a whirling tumult that seems to paint a near perfect musical picture. If you happen to think of Maxell tapes rather than witches, then I think that's fine too. 'TYPICAL. YOU WAIT AGES FOR A GORGEOUS CONCERTO, THEN…'