The Nursery (song cycle)

Nursery (Russian Детская, Detskaja ) is the title of a song cycle by Modest Mussorgsky for mezzo- soprano and piano, which tells a little boy of his adventures of everyday life. The songs are not interpreted by a boy soprano, but by a mezzo-soprano.

In the German translation of the titles are:

Mussorgsky wrote the nursery 1870-72. The cycle was first performed in Paris, where the composer Debussy spoke highly of the composition, an entirely new expressive musical style represented in France, which is applied very close to the language and content of the words, rather than to meet a predetermined shape.

The nursery was later orchestrated by Rodion Shchedrin and Edison Denisov (1974). When Peters Edition are versions before with two different German translations, including a French translation is available.