The extraordinary group of Russian composers who came together in St Petersburg in the 1860s, long known as 'The Mighty Handful', but, as the moguchaya kuchka, better translated as 'the great little heap', gave rise to one of the most colourful stories in all musical history. Stephen Walsh, author of a major biography of their direct successor, Stravinsky, has written an absorbing account of Musorgsky and his circle - Borodin, Cui, Balakirev and Rimsky-Korsakov. With little or no musical education they created works of lasting significance - Musorgsky's Boris Godunov, Borodin's Prince Igor and Rimsky-Korsakov's Sheherazade.