'Emerson's biography seamlessly combines imaginative and reliable scholarship.' The Times Literary Supplement

• Preface; 1. Childhood and youth (1839–56); 2. Apprenticeship in Petersburg, 1850–60s: composers' evenings and the commune; 3. Conservatories, 'circles', and Musorgsky at the musical edge; 4. 1868–74: Musorgsky and Russian history; 5. The 1870s: Musorgsky and death; 6. Beyond tragedy: the final years; Epilogue: the Musorgsky problem, then and now; Musical appendix: what to look for in Musorgsky's style.

'Emerson's biography seamlessly combines imaginative and reliable scholarship.' The Times Literary Supplement

• Preface; 1. Childhood and youth (1839–56); 2. Apprenticeship in Petersburg, 1850–60s: composers' evenings and the commune; 3. Conservatories, 'circles', and Musorgsky at the musical edge; 4. 1868–74: Musorgsky and Russian history; 5. The 1870s: Musorgsky and death; 6. Beyond tragedy: the final years; Epilogue: the Musorgsky problem, then and now; Musical appendix: what to look for in Musorgsky's style.

'Emerson's biography seamlessly combines imaginative and reliable scholarship.' The Times Literary Supplement

• Preface; 1. Childhood and youth (1839–56); 2. Apprenticeship in Petersburg, 1850–60s: composers' evenings and the commune; 3. Conservatories, 'circles', and Musorgsky at the musical edge; 4. 1868–74: Musorgsky and Russian history; 5. The 1870s: Musorgsky and death; 6. Beyond tragedy: the final years; Epilogue: the Musorgsky problem, then and now; Musical appendix: what to look for in Musorgsky's style.