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This week Donald Macleod explores the music of Mussorgsky, with a particular focus on his songs. Today, music dramas in miniature; and Mlada, a collaboration that unravelled.

Given the modest size of Mussorgsky's output, his influence on subsequent generations of composers is disproportionate; his originality allows him to punch above his weight. This is particularly true in the field of opera - Mussorgsky completed only one, Boris Godunov, but it rewrote the operatic rulebook. His tragic early death doubtless robbed us of several more ground-breaking operatic works, but as Donald observes, "the opera-lover's loss is the song-lover's gain", as Mussorgsky left a substantial and relatively little-known body of individual songs, many of which are built around dramatic scenarios. The dramatic scenario at the heart of Mlada, conceived as a spectacular opera-ballet that was to have been a collaboration between Mussorgsky, Borodin, Cui and Rimsky-Korsakov, was a fantastical one, involving a murdered princess who's eventually reunited with her prince in heaven. There was to be no happy ending for the project, though, which fizzled out due to lack of funds. Mussorgsky contributed four sections, two of them recycled from earlier works and all of them subsequently put to work in new musical contexts.

Sorochintsi Fair, Act 1 - Fair scene
Lydia Chernikh, soprano (Parassia)
Vladimir Matorin, bass (Tcherevik)
Chorus and Orchestra of the Stanislavsky Theatre
Vladimir Esipov, conductor

'The joyous hour'
Sergei Leiferkus, baritone
Semion Skigin, piano

'Darling Savishna'
Sergei Leiferkus, baritone
Semion Skigin, piano

'King Saul'
Sergei Leiferkus, baritone
Semion Skigin, piano

Cradle Song ('Sleep, sleep, peasant son')
Boris Christoff, bass
Alexandre Labinsky, piano

'A Prayer'
Boris Christoff, baritone
Alexandre Labinsky, piano

'Night'
Sergei Leiferkus, baritone
Semion Skigin, piano

'Ah, you drunken sot!'
Sergei Leiferkus, baritone
Semion Skigin, piano

Chorus of People in the Temple - from Oedipus in Athens
Prague Philharmonic Choir
Berlin Philharmonic
Claudio Abbado, conductor

Triumphal March (The Capture of Kars)
London Symphony Orchestra
Claudio Abbado, conductor

St John's Night on Bald Mountain (original version)
Berlin Philharmonic
Claudio Abbado, conductor.