Stasov helped to organize a memorial exhibition of over 400 Hartmann works in the Imperial Academy of Arts in Saint Petersburg in February and March 1874. The loss of the artist, aged only 39, plunged the composer into deep despair. Hartmann's sudden death on 4 August 1873 from an aneurysm shook Mussorgsky along with others in Russia's art world. Golenishchev-Kutuzov wrote: ' banner was held by Mussorgsky alone all the other members had left it and pursued his own path. The disintegration of The Mighty Handful and their failure to understand his artistic goals contributed to the isolation he experienced as an outsider in Saint Petersburg's musical establishment. Other circumstances conspired to dampen Mussorgsky's spirits.

Mussorgsky's distant relative, friend, and roommate during this period, Arseniy Golenishchev-Kutuzov, describing the January 1874 premiere of the opera, remarked: 'During the winter, there were, I think, nine performances, and each time the theatre was sold out, each time the public tumultuously called for Mussorgsky.' The composer's triumph was overshadowed, however, by the critical drubbing he received in the press. The years 1873–74 are associated with the staging of Boris Godunov, the zenith of Mussorgsky's career as a composer-at least from the standpoint of public acclaim. Mussorgsky had abandoned the scene in his original 1869 version, but at the requests of Stasov and Hartmann, he reworked it for Act 3 in his revision of 1872. Stasov remarked that Hartmann loved Mussorgsky's compositions, and particularly liked the 'Scene by the Fountain' in his opera Boris Godunov. In 1870, Mussorgsky dedicated the second song ('In the Corner') of the cycle The Nursery to Hartmann. According to Stasov's testimony, in 1868, Hartmann gave Mussorgsky two of the pictures that later formed the basis of Pictures at an Exhibition. They likely met in the home of the influential critic Vladimir Stasov, who followed both of their careers with interest. Both men were devoted to the cause of an intrinsically Russian art and quickly became friends. It was probably in 1868 that Mussorgsky first met Hartmann, not long after the latter's return to Russia from abroad. The composition is based on pictures by the artist, architect, and designer Viktor Hartmann. The Bogatyr Gates (In the Capital in Kiev) Catacombs (Roman Tomb) – With the Dead in a Dead Language

Tuileries (Children's Quarrel after Games)

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