Boris Godunov (opera) to exhibit a lack of cohesion between scenes. He claimed that Mussorgsky was so deficient in the ability to write instrumental music that he dispensed with composing a prelude, and that he had "borrowed the cheap method of characterization by leitmotives from Wagner." Other composers were even more censorious. Pyotr Tchaikovsky wrote in a letter to his brother Modest: Of the critics who evaluated the new opera, only the 19-year-old critic Vladimir Baskin defended Mussorgsky's skill as a composer. Writing under the pen name "Foma Pizzicato", Baskin wrote, Although "Boris Godunov" is usually praised for its originality, dramatic choruses, sharply
Boris Godunov and any offspring thereof, Dmitri (and his mother's family) had no claim to the throne. Still, taking no chances, shortly after Ivan's death the Council had both Dmitri and his mother Maria Nagaya moved to Uglich, some 120 miles north of Moscow. Dmitri died there in 1591 at the age of ten in suspicious circumstances . As Dmitri's death was announced by the church bell, the people of Uglich rose up in protest against what they suspected was an assassination commissioned by Boris Godunov. Troops were sent and the rebellion was swiftly quelled. Then Boris Godunov ordered the Uglich bell