Sunless (song cycle)

Sunless (Russian: Без солнца, Bez Solntsa, literally Without Sun) is a song cycle by Modest Petrovich Mussorgsky, written in 1874 and arranged for voice and piano.

[1] These poems comprise a loose narrative that is nostalgic, surreal, and pessimistic, dwelling upon lost love, romantic rejection, and doubts from the protagonist's past, culminating in a contemplation of death.

[2] This narrative is believed to be in part autobiographical; musicologist Richard Taruskin characterized it as the voice of "a neurotically self-absorbed, broken-down aristocrat."

Sunless was described by scholar Simon Perry as "aesthetically and stylistically anomalous" among Mussorgsky's work, makes use of symmetrical or “synthetic” chromaticism.

[3] The song cycle, like Boris Godunov, met a scathing reception, and Mussorgsky did not mention it in his autobiography.