Borodin, Alexander 09/12/1833 - 02/28/1887

Alexander Porfyrevich Borodin (1833-1887) was a Russian composer who made his living as a chemist. He was a member of "The Mighty Handful," a group of composers dedicated to producing a specifically Russian music.



Borodin was born in Saint Petersburg, the illegitimate son of a Georgian Prince, Luka Gedevanishvili, who had him registered instead as the son of one of his serfs. He received a good education, including piano lessons, but it was chemistry in which he specialised, and he did not receive any formal lessons in composition until 1863, when he was taught by Mily Balakirev.



In 1869, Balakirev conducted Borodin's first symphony, and in the same year, Borodin started on his second symphony. This new symphony was a failure at its premiere, but Franz Liszt arranged a performance of it in Germany in 1880, and this brought Borodin some fame outside Russia.



Also in 1869, Borodin began work on his opera, Prince Igor. It contains the Polovetsian Dances, which are often performed as a stand-alone work, and in that form probably constitute his best known composition. Borodin left the opera incomplete at his death, composition being slowed by his heavy workload as a chemist. It was completed posthumously by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Alexander Glazunov.



Despite being recognised as an accomplished composer, Borodin always earned a living as a chemist, and gained great respect in that field also, being particularly noted for his work on aldehydes. As a result, describing himself as a "Sunday composer", he was not as prolific a composer as many of his contemporaries, but he did write the popular symphonic poem In the Steppes of Central Asia, two string quartets of which the second, perhaps due to its strong lyricism and the popular nocturne movement, has become the more often performed, and a handful of songs and piano pieces. He also started work on a third symphony, but that, also, was incomplete at his death (two movements of it were later completed by Glazunov).



Borodin's music is noted for its strong lyricalism and rich harmonies and undeniably Russian flavor. His passionate music and unusual harmonies proved to have a lasting influence on the younger French composers Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel.



Borodin died on February 27, 1887 and was interred in Tikhvin Cemetery at the Alexander Nevsky Monastery, in St. Petersburg, Russia. In 1954, Borodin was posthumously awarded a Tony Award for composition on the Broadway musical Kismet by Robert Wright and George Forrest, which reworked several of his compositions.