Modest Mussorgsky

Tuesday 3rd May, 10.00am-12.00pm, Pantygwydr Baptist Church, Ernald Place, Uplands, Swansea SA2 0HN for 10 weeks.
Course fee: £30

Topic:
Russian Opera
Russian opera, that is really Russian Russian opera (as distinct from earlier, mostly Italianate, Frenchified or Germanic imitations) started in the mid nineteenth century with the works of the first nationalist composer, Mikail Glinka. His two operas A Life for the Tsar and Ruslan & Lyudmila were the beginning of a spate of operatic works by his younger compatriots that featured several masterpieces.

Tchaikovsky’s 10 operas included Eugene Onegin and The Queen of Spades; Rimsky-Korsakov’s 15 include May Night, Sadko and The Golden Cockerel; Mussorgsky’s 5 (of which he only completed one) contain what is, perhaps, the most famous of all of these works, Boris Godunov (but there’s also Kovanshchina and Sorochyntsi Fair); and Borodin’s 1 (also incomplete), the exotic world of Prince Igor. Then there’s Shostakovich and Prokofiev…

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Wednesday 4th May, 2.00-4.00, St. James Church Hall, Walter Road, Swansea SA1 4QF for 10 weeks.

Course fee: c. £40

Topic:
The Piano Concerto
Mozart wrote twenty-seven, Beethoven just five and after that it seemed that few well known composers could get away without writing at least one: Schumann, Brahms, Chopin, Liszt, Tchaikovsky, Grieg, Saint-Saëns, Rachmaninoff, Bartók…