Scherzo in B-flat Major

• Mussorgsky originally wrote this scherzo for piano, while studying composition with Mily Balakirev in 1858. Balakirev helped Mussorgsky orchestrate it.¹
• Mussorgsky composed this shortly after he quit his military officer position to devote himself full-time to music.²
• In 1859 Mussorgsky met Borodin and played a Scherzo for him (it’s likely it was this scherzo). Borodin wrote,

“Among other things I was told that he, too, composes. Naturally this interested me. He began to play me a scherzo. Before the trio he mumbled between his teeth, ‘Now, that’s something oriental.’ ”

Aleksandr Borodin³

1. Robert W. Oldani, “Musorgsky [Mussorgsky; Moussorgsky], Modest Petrovich,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed November 19, 2019, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000019468. 
2. Melanie Unseld, trans. Annelies McVoy and David Feurzeig, liner notes to Mussorgsky: St. John’s Night on the Bare Mountain et al, Berlin Philharmonic, Claudio Abbado, Sony 62034, CD, 1997. 
3. Unseld, trans. McVoy and Feurzeig, liner notes to Mussorgsky: St. John’s Night on the Bare Mountain.