Complete Songs

(Vocal Collection). A major edition of 67 songs, all in the original keys, which covers a variety of voice types. Cyrillic and transliteration are included with each song, as are line by line English translations for study. Mussorgsky's rich imagination as a composer of song is not well-known. The style is unique, the music directly emotional. There are four complete song cycles in this edition. The first, "Youthful Years," is an unconventional song grouping, not written for the same voice type, a "song cycle" that's more a convenience of collecting early work. It would better be viewed as 17 individual songs. The other three cycles are "The Nursery" (for mezzo-soprano), "Sunless" (for mezzo-soprano or baritone), and "Songs and Dances of Death" (mezzo-soprano or soprano). There are also 32 individual songs not in cycles. Mussorgsky wrote substantial revisions of 11 songs; both the original version and the second version are included for these.