Musorgsky and His Circle

The extraordinary group of Russian composers who came together in St Petersburg in the 1860s - long known as 'The Mighty Handful', but, as the moguchaya kuchka, better translated as 'the great little heap' - gave rise to one of the most fascinating and colourful stories in all musical history.Stephen Walsh, author of a major biography of their direct successor, Stravinsky, has written an absorbing...