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Alexander Borodin
Britannica Concise Encyclopedia:
Aleksandr Porfiryevich Borodin |
Related Videos:
Alexander Borodin |
Oxford Grove Music Encyclopedia:
Alexander Porfir′yevich Borodin |
(b St Petersburg, 12 Nov 1833; d there, 27 Feb 1887). Russian composer. As a youth he developed parallel interests in music and chemistry, teaching himself the cello and qualifying in medicine (1856); throughout his life music was subordinated to his research and his activities as a lecturer (from 1862) at the Medico-Surgical Academy in St Petersburg. His predilection for the music of Mendelssohn and Schumann, together with his acquaintance with Musorgsky, Cui, Rimsky-Korsakov, Liszt and above all Balakirev gave shape to his compositional efforts. It was mainly through Balakirev's influence that he turned towards Russian nationalism, using Russian folksong in his music; he was one of ‘The Five’, the group eager to create a distinctive nationalist school.
Borodin's earliest completed works include the First Symphony in E♭ (1867), showing a freshness and assurance that brought immediate acclaim, and no.2 in B minor (1876) which, though longer in the making, is one of the boldest and most colourful symphonies of the century, in the Russian context a mature, symphonic counterpart to Glinka's Ruslan and Lyudmila. The piece contributing most to his early fame, however, especially in western Europe, was the short orchestral ‘musical picture’ On the Steppes of Central Asia (1880; dedicated to Liszt). Among the important chamber pieces, including those works which give the lie most clearly to charges of inspired dilettantism still sometimes brought against him, are the early Piano Quintet in C minor (1862) - already showing the supple lyricism, smooth texture, neat design and heartfelt elegiac quality of his most characteristic music - and the two string quartets, the second famous for its beautiful Nocturne, with their craftsmanship and latent muscularity. His most substantial achievement was undoubtedly the opera Prince Igor (written over the period 1869-87; completed and partly orchestrated by Rimsky-Korsakov and Glazunov). Despite its protracted creation and weak, disjointed libretto (Borodin's own), it contains abundant musical richness in its individual arias, in its powerfully Russian atmosphere and its fine choral scenes crowned by the barbaric splendour of the Polovtsian Dances.
works:Dramatic music
- The Bogatïrs, opera-farce (1867)
- Prince Igor, opera, inc. (1887)
- one act of Mlada, opera-ballet (1872)
- Sym. no.1, E♭ (1867)
- Sym. no.2, b (1876) Sym. no.3, a, inc. (1887)
- In the Steppes of Central Asia, musical picture (1880)
- 2 str qts (1879, 1881)
- Pf Qnt c(1862)
- c 10 other chamber works
- scherzos etc for pf solo and duet
- c 16 songs
Gale Encyclopedia of Biography:
Aleksandr Profirevich Borodin |
The Russian composer Aleksandr Porfirevich Borodin (1833-1887) was also a physician and research chemist. He epitomized the group of composers known as the "Mighty Five" and used folk music in conscious pursuit of a "national style."
Aleksandr Borodin was born in St. Petersburg. The name Borodin was that of a retainer to Prince Gedeanov; the prince acknowledged paternity and provided the mother and the boy with a name. Borodin was raised with many of the privileges of the nobility, and his education was broad in the tradition of the European gentleman. This included musical training and preparation for a profession: medicine.
While still a young medical intern, Borodin gained entry to the Mighty Five, partly on the strength of his keyboard ability - a defining factor of the 19th-century romantic Russian composer. His training had been that of the gifted dilettante; he now came under the influence of the taskmaster of the group, Mili Balakirev, and subsequently under the influence of the other members of the Mighty Five: Modest Mussorgsky, César Cui, and Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Of them, Borodin alone stuck by his original and primary profession, although he gave up actual medical practice ("distasteful") for research.
Although his works are relatively few, Borodin ranks a close second to Mussorgsky as a creative artist among the Mighty Five. His gift is marked neither by the uncertainty nor the verbosity of some of his colleagues and most of his musical heirs. Moreover, his confidence is not marred by the self-righteous certainty that led the next generation of Russian composers into relatively insignificant utterance.
Borodin's Second Symphony (the Bogatyr or Heroic) and his opera Prince Igor (finished posthumously by Rimsky-Korsakov and Aleksandr Glazunov) are his principal works of large proportions. In both he uses a developed folk style effectively, and in the opera he makes a major contribution to the subgenre of "Russian music about the East." Borodin's happy gift for beguiling melody is attested to by the adaptation of his Prince Igor music for the American musical Kismet. Other than the symphony and the opera, his most-played works are, perhaps, the two String Quartets, some of whose themes are also heard in Kismet. A few other chamber works and some 18 art songs nearly round out Borodin's complete list of works.
Some elements of Borodin's personal life and his creative procedures remain obscure. A significant store of Borodiniana has been, since the composer's death, in the hands of the Dianin family. Although the family has tried to present the composer to the world (the first Dianin was Borodin's laboratory assistant), they are too closely involved and Soviet puritanism is far too strong to allow for frankness about personal things; and the Dianins, none of them professional musicians, misjudge what is significant about the creative procedure. Sergei Dianin, a mathematician, in his Borodin biography (1963) supposed the composer to have combined musical elements as a chemist combines chemicals.
Borodin did not teach. He died in 1887, and his legacy was preserved by his friends and reappears in some of the work of Sergei Prokofiev. Borodin's few works, like those of Mussorgsky, are disproportionately important.
Further Reading
The basic biography of Borodin is Sergei Dianin, Borodin (trans. 1963). An earlier work is Gerald E. H. Abraham, Borodin: The Composer and His Music (1927). Books with substantial sections on Borodin include Abraham's Studies in Russian Music (1936); M. D. Calvocoressi and Gerald Abraham, Masters of Russian Music (1936); Donald Brook, Six Great Russian Composers (1946); Victor I. Seroff, The Mighty Five: The Cradle of Russian National Music (1948); and Mikhail O. Zetlin, The Five: The Evolution of the Russian School of Music, edited and translated by George Panin (1959).
Additional Sources
Dianin, Sergei Aleksandrovich, Borodin, Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1980.
Aleksandr Porfirevich Borodin: a chemist's biography, Berlin; New York: Springer-Verlag, 1988.
Habets, Alfred, Borodin and Liszt, New York: AMS Press, 1977.
Oxford Dictionary of Dance:
Alexander Borodin |
Borodin, Alexander (b St Petersburg, 12 Nov. 1833, d St Petersburg, 27 Feb. 1887). Russian composer. Although he wrote no ballet music, the Polovtsian Dances from his opera Prince Igor was one of the most popular works in the repertoire of Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, choreographed by Fokine.
Columbia Encyclopedia:
Aleksandr Porfirevich Borodin |
Borodin, Aleksandr Porfirevich (əlyĭksän'dər pərfē'rĭvĭch bôrôdyēn'), 1833-87, Russian composer, chemist, and physician. He studied at the academy of medicine in St. Petersburg, where he later taught chemistry. He also helped found a school of medicine for women. An amateur musician, he had little musical training, consisting mainly of study with Balakirev. His principal works are two symphonies; several fine songs; an orchestral tone poem, In the Steppes of Central Asia (1880); and an opera, Prince Igor, left unfinished, which Rimsky-Korsakov and Glazunov completed. It was first performed in St. Petersburg in 1890. He was one of a group of Russian nationalist composers known as The Five.
Bibliography
See biography by G. Abraham; V. I. Seroff, The Mighty Five (1948); M. O. Zetlin, The Five (tr. 1959).
AMG AllMusic Guide to Classical Music:
Alexander Borodin |
- Genres: Chamber Music, Keyboard Music, Opera, Orchestral Music, Symphony, Vocal Music
Biography
Alexander Borodin (1833-1887) was a late Romantic Russian nationalist composer who was known for his involvement with the so-called "Mighty Handful," along with Rimsky-Korsakov, Mussorgsky, Cui, and Balakirev. A chemist and educator by profession, Borodin spent many years laboring on his compositions, devoting five years to his Symphony No. 2 in B minor and several decades to his opera, Prince Igor, which was left unfinished at his death. The "Polovetsian Dances" from Prince Igor, the tone poem In the Steppes of Central Asia, and the melodious Nocturne (taken from the String Quartet No. 2) are among Borodin's most enduring works. ~ Blair Sanderson, Rovi
Wikipedia on Answers.com:
Alexander Borodin |
| Aleksandr Borodin | |
|---|---|
 Aleksandr Borodin |
|
| Born | 12 November 1833 Saint Petersburg |
| Died | 27 February 1887 (age 53) Saint Petersburg |
| Nationality | Russian |
| Fields | Composer and chemist |
| Doctoral advisor | Nikolay Zinin |
Alexander Porfiryevich Borodin[1] (12 November 1833 – 27 February 1887)[2] was a Russian Romantic composer and chemist of Georgian–Russian parentage. He was a member of the group of composers called The Five (or "The Mighty Handful"), who were dedicated to producing a specifically Russian kind of art music.[3][4][5] He is best known for his symphonies, his two string quartets, and his opera Prince Igor. Music from Prince Igor and his string quartets was later adapted for the US musical Kismet.
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Life and profession
Borodin was born in Saint Petersburg, the illegitimate son of a Georgian noble, Luka Gedevanishvili (Georgian: ლუკა სიმონის ძე გედევანიშვილი) and a 24-year-old Russian woman, Evdokia Konstantinovna Antonova (Евдокия Константиновна Антонова). The nobleman had him registered as the son of one of his serfs, Porfiry Borodin.[6] As a boy he received a good education, including piano lessons.[7] He entered the Medico–Surgical Academy in 1850, which was later home to Ivan Pavlov, and pursued a career in chemistry. On graduation he spent a year as surgeon in a military hospital, followed by three years of advanced scientific study in western Europe.
In 1862 Borodin became a professor of chemistry at the Academy of Medicine, and eventually was able to establish medical courses for women (1872). He spent the remainder of his life lecturing and overseeing the education of others.
He began taking lessons in composition from Mily Balakirev in 1862. He married Ekaterina Protopopova, a pianist, in 1863.[8] Music remained a secondary vocation for Borodin outside of his main career as a chemist and physician. He suffered poor health, having overcome cholera and several minor heart attacks. He died suddenly during a ball at the Academy, and was interred in Tikhvin Cemetery at the Alexander Nevsky Monastery, in Saint Petersburg.
Career as a chemist
In his profession Borodin gained great respect, being particularly noted for his work on aldehydes.[9] Between 1859 and 1862 Borodin held a postdoctorate in Heidelberg. He worked in the laboratory of Emil Erlenmeyer working on benzene derivatives. He also spent time in Pisa, working on organic halogens. One experiment published in 1862 described the first nucleophilic displacement of chlorine by fluorine in benzoyl chloride.[10] A related reaction known to the West as the Hunsdiecker reaction published in 1939 by the Hunsdieckers was promoted by the Soviet Union as the Borodin reaction. In 1862 he returned to the Medico–Surgical Academy, where he worked on self-condensation of small aldehydes. He published papers in 1864 and 1869, and in this field he found himself competing with August Kekulé.
Borodin is co-credited with the discovery of the Aldol reaction, with Charles-Adolphe Wurtz. In 1872 he announced to the Russian Chemical Society the discovery of a new by-product in aldehyde reactions with alcohol-like properties, and he noted similarities with compounds already discussed in publications by Wurtz from the same year.
He published his last full article in 1875 on reactions of amides and his last publication concerned a method for the identification of urea in animal urine.
His son-in-law and successor was fellow chemist A. P. Dianin.
Musical avocation
Opera and orchestral works
Borodin met Mily Balakirev in 1862. While under Balakirev's tutelage in composition he began his Symphony No. 1 in E flat major; it was first performed in 1869, with Balakirev conducting. In that same year Borodin started on his Symphony No. 2 in B minor, which was not particularly successful at its premiere in 1877 under Eduard Nápravník, but with some minor re-orchestration received a successful performance in 1879 by the Free Music School under Rimsky-Korsakov's direction. In 1880 he composed the popular symphonic poem In the Steppes of Central Asia. Two years later he began composing a third symphony, but left it unfinished at his death; two movements of it were later completed and orchestrated by Glazunov.
In 1868 Borodin became distracted from initial work on the second symphony by preoccupation with the opera Prince Igor, which is seen by some to be his most significant work and one of the most important historical Russian operas. It contains the Polovtsian Dances, often performed as a stand-alone concert work forming what is probably Borodin's best known composition. Borodin left the opera (and a few other works) incomplete at his death. Prince Igor was completed posthumously by Rimsky-Korsakov and Glazunov. It is set in the 12th century, when the barbarous Polovtsians invaded southern Russia. The story tells of the capture of Prince Igor and son Vladimir of Russia by Polovtsian leader Khan Konchak, who entertains his prisoners lavishly and calls on his slaves to perform the famous Polovtsian dances, which provide a thrilling climax to the second act.
Chamber music
No other member of the Balakirev circle identified himself so openly with absolute music as did Borodin in his two string quartets. Himself a cellist, he was an enthusiastic chamber music player, an interest that deepened during his chemical studies in Heidelberg between 1859 and 1861. This early period yielded, among other chamber works, a string sextet and a piano quintet. In thematic structure and instrumental texture he based his pieces on those of Felix Mendelssohn.[11]
In 1875 Borodin started his First String Quartet, much to the displeasure of Mussorgsky and Vladimir Stasov. That Borodin did so in the company of The Five, who were hostile to chamber music, speaks to his independence. From the First Quartet on, he displayed mastery in the form. His Second Quartet, in which his strong lyricism is represented in the popular "Nocturne", followed in 1881. The First Quartet is richer in changes of mood. The Second Quartet has a more uniform atmosphere and expression.[11]
Musical legacy
Main article: List of compositions by Alexander Borodin
Borodin's fame outside the Russian Empire was made possible during his lifetime by Franz Liszt, who arranged a performance of the Symphony No. 1 in Germany in 1880, and by the Comtesse de Mercy-Argenteau in Belgium and France. His music is noted for its strong lyricism and rich harmonies. Along with some influences from Western composers, as a member of The Five his music exudes also an undeniably Russian flavor. His passionate music and unusual harmonies proved to have a lasting influence on the younger French composers Debussy and Ravel (in homage, the latter composed in 1913 a piano piece entitled "À la manière de Borodine").
The evocative characteristics of Borodin's music made possible the adaptation of his compositions in the 1953 musical Kismet, by Robert Wright and George Forrest, perhaps most notably in the song, "Stranger in Paradise". In 1954, Borodin was posthumously awarded a Tony Award for this show.
- Borodin's music is full of romantic charm and enticing melody, and much of it also rings with the pageantry and landscape of old Russia; of onion-domed churches, richly decorated icons, and the vastness of the land. (Betty Fry)
Subsequent references
- The Borodin Quartet was named in his honour.
- The chemist Alexander Shulgin uses the name "Alexander Borodin" as a fictional persona in the books PiHKAL and TiHKAL.
- In his book Burning in Water, Drowning in Flame (1974) Charles Bukowski wrote a poem about the life of Borodin entitled "the life of borodin".
References
- ^ Russian: Алекса́ндр Порфи́рьевич Бороди́н, tr. Aleksandr Porfir'evič Borodin.
- ^ Old Style dates 31 October 1833 – 15 February 1887.
- ^ Abraham, Gerald. Borodin: the Composer and his Music. London, 1927
- ^ Dianin, Sergei Aleksandrovich. Borodin. London, New York, Oxford University Press, 1963
- ^ Oldani, Robert, William. "Borodin, Aleksandr Porfir′yevich," Grove Music Online (Accessed 27 January 2006, subscription required)
- ^ 8Notes website
- ^ By his teens Borodin could speak German, French, Italian and English, and could play the piano, flute and cello (Betty Fry, Tutor.com)
- ^ Habets, Alfred (2005). Borodin and Liszt: I. Life and works of a Russian Composer. II. Liszt, as sketched in the letters of Borodin. Adamant Media Corporation. ISBN 978-1-4212-5305-3.
- ^ Michael D. Gordin (1996). "Facing the Music: How Original Was Borodin's Chemistry?" (PDF). Journal of Chemical Education 83 (4): 561–566. doi:10.1021/ed083p561. http://www.jce.divched.org/HS/Journal/Issues/2006/Apr/clicSubscriber/V83N04/p561.pdf.
- ^ E. J. Behrman (2006). "Borodin?" (PDF). Journal of Chemical Education 83 (8): 1138. doi:10.1021/ed083p1138.1. http://www.jce.divched.org/HS/Journal/Issues/2006/Aug/clicSubscriber/V83N08/p1138_1.pdf.
- ^ a b Maes, 72
External links
- Free scores by Alexander Borodin in the Werner Icking Music Archive (WIMA)
- Famous "In the Steppes of Central Asia", Alexander Borodin in Film "Moscow clad in snow", 00:07:22, 1908 on YouTube
- List of compositions (German)
- Free scores by Borodin at the International Music Score Library Project
- Free scores by Alexander Borodin in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)
- Borodin's tomb
Further reading
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Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Alexander Borodin |
- Maes, Francis, tr. Pomerans, Arnold J. and Erica Pomerans, A History of Russian Music: From Kamarinskaya to Babi Yar (Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 2002). ISBN 0-520-21815-9.
- George Sarton (1939). "Borodin (1833–87)". Osiris 7: 224–260. doi:10.1086/368505. JSTOR 301543.
- A. J. B. Hutchings (1936). "A Study of Borodin: I. The Man". The Musical Times 77 (1124): 881–883. doi:10.2307/920565. JSTOR 920565.
- George B. Kauffman, Kathryn Bumpass (1988). "An Apparent Conflict between Art and Science: The Case of Aleksandr Porfir'evich Borodin (1833–1887)". Leonardo 21 (4): 429–436. doi:10.2307/1578707. JSTOR 1578707.
- J. Podlech (2010). ""Try and Fall Sick …"—The Composer, Chemist, and Surgeon Aleksandr Borodin". Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 49 (37): 6490–95. doi:10.1002/anie.201002023. PMID 20715236.
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 | Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. Britannica Concise Encyclopedia. © 1994-2012 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Oxford Grove Music Encyclopedia. The Concise Grove Dictionary of Music. Copyright © 1994 by Oxford University Press, Inc.. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Gale Encyclopedia of Biography. Gale Encyclopedia of Biography. © 2006 by The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Oxford Dictionary of Dance. The Oxford Dictionary of Dance. Copyright © 2000, 2004 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/. Read more |
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| AMG AllMusic Guide to Classical Music . Copyright © 2012 All Media Guide, LLC. Content provided by All Music Guide ®, a trademark of All Media Guide, LLC. All rights reserved. Read more |
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- Kismet (work)
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- Kismet [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack] [MCA] (1955 Album by Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
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