He was a member of The Five, the group of composers under the leadership of Mily Balakirev dedicated to producing a distinctly Russian kind of music. Mussourgsky is best remembered today for his orchestral work St. John's Night on the Bare Mountain (commonly known as Night on Bald Mountain), and his cycle of piano pieces, Pictures at an Exhibition, written in commemoration of his friend, the architect Viktor Hartmann[?]. Pictures at an Exhibition was later arranged for orchestra by Maurice Ravel. Mussorgsky's opera, Boris Godunov is also well known.
Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky died on March 28, 1881 and was interred in Tikhvin Cemetery at the Alexander Nevsky Monastery, in St. Petersburg, Russia.