: 'What shall we do?' The answer was: 'Throw aside social
and artistic conventions. Make art the hand-maiden of humanity. Seek
not for beauty but for truth. Go to the people. Hold out the hand of
fellowship to the liberated masses and learn from them the true
purpose of life.' To this democratic and utilitarian spirit, to this
deep compassion for the people, to this contempt for the dandyism and
dilettantism of an earlier generation Moussorgsky strove to give
expression in his music, as Perov expressed it in painting, as
Tchernichevsky, Dostoyevsky, and Tolstoi expressed it in fiction. We
may disagree with his aesthetic principles, but we must confess that
he carried out with logical sequence and conviction a considerable
portion of his programme. In his sincere efforts to attain great ends
he undoubtedly overlooked the means. He could never submit to the
discipline of a thorough musical training as Tchaikowsky and
Rimsky-Korsakoff. He preserved his originality intact, but at a heavy
cost. The weakness of his technique has been exaggerated by those who
put down all his peculiarities to ignorance; but in some
respects--particularly as regards orchestration--his craftsmanship was
certainly unequal to the demands of his inspiration, for his aims were
very lofty. Had this been otherwise, Moussorgsky's name would have
been more closely linked with those of Berlioz and Richard
Strauss."[322]

[Footnote 322: Quoted from the article in Grove's Dictionary.]

His acknowledged masterpieces are first, the songs, especially the
series the _Nursery_ and the _Songs and Dances of Death_, in which we
see mirrored with extraordinary fidelity the complex nature of the
Russian people. Rosa Newmarch has called him the Juvenal of musicians.
Second, his national music drama, _Boris Godounoff_--dealing with one
of the most sensational episodes in Russian history--which, for the
gripping vividness of its descriptions, is quite unparalleled.

"_Boris Godounoff_, finished in 1870, was performed four years later
in the Imperial Opera House. The libretto of this opera he took from
the poetic drama of Pushkin, but he changed it, eliminating much and
adding new scenes here and there, so that as a whole it is his own
creation. In this work Moussorgsky went against the foreign classic
opera in conception as well as in construction. It is a typically
Russian music-drama, with all the richness of Slavic colors, true
Byzantine atmosphere and characters