The Five, The Mighty Handful, and The New Russian School all depict the five Russian composers who gathered in 1856-57 in St. Petersburg. Their ultimate goal was to represent and produce a Russian style of music, and that is exactly what they would accomplish. Although one of the "Five" goes further with his works, being Modest Mussorgsky. Mussorgsky was a composer born on March 21, 1839, with one of the most controversial names and spellings of a name. He was born to wealthy landowners and was raised for military life. He studied piano at a young age in St. Petersburg, and then went to cadet school. Mussorgsky's importance and influence on later composers is entirely disproportionate to his relatively small output. The 65 songs he composed, many of them with his own lyrics, describe scenes of Russian life with great vividness and insight and realistically reproduce the inflections of the spoken Russian language. "Musorgsky was recognized by both Kuchka and Tchaikovsky as a powerful musical force." Rimsky-Korsakoff, for example, regarded some of his friend's bolder strokes as "mistakes, especially in his harmonies." Mussorgsky was too knowledgeable about contemporary aesthetic philosophy and was too self-conscious, to the point that his mental conflict further detracted from the composition. However, he knew what he wanted and felt it was his job to give substance to his artistic intuitions. Mussorgsky's music challenged the music of the nineteenth century and stood outside the standard of Brahms versus Wagner struggle. It opened a new musical path and a new aesthetic attitude. Despite being a patronized composer in the nineteenth century, he became a hero in the twentieth. Mussorgsky's Pi...... suite from 1874 in the center of the sheet......if forms. The performances of the piece by both the Philharmonia Orchestra and the Chicago Symphony are superb, maintaining similar characteristics in both performances. The most obvious and intentional difference is the tempos, the Philharmonic takes the "Promenade" at a majestic and slower tempo. To which it can be said that they really exemplified the overall sound that Mussorgsky was going for. There is a shared feel of phrasing and overall musicianship between both performances, but you will be brought back to the Philharmonia's interpretation with their majestic structure and sound. The Philharmonic also explores the realm of the tenor tuba with its playing, to ease the burden placed on the bassist. Chicago's Symphony was able to use a wider range of dynamic contrast and coloration between timbral sections, while maintaining the context of the pieces.