Mussorgski Songs and Dances of Death

Songs and Dances of Death is a song cycle for voice and piano by Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky, written in the 1875 to poems by Arseny Golenishchev-Kutuzov, a relative of the composer. Each song deals with death in a poetic manner although the depictions are realistic in that they reflect experiences not uncommon in 19th century Russia: child death, death in youth, drunken misadventure and war. The four songs of the cycle have an average performance time of 22 minutes.