Alexander
Borodin
was born in St Petersburg at November 2nd, 1833, when his
father was sixty-two and his mother was twenty-five. He was
descended from the King of Imeretia. Also his father was a
Georgian prince, Gedianov. However; he had to be the
lawful son of one of Gedianov's serfs because his mother was
the wife of an army doctor. He had been interested in music
since his early ages. He learned how to play flute at his
very early age. He is also known as a very good player of
piano and cello. When he was around 14 or 15, he started to
compose music. Even though he was captured by music, he chose
the other career for his job because his mother wanted him
to study at the faculty of medicine and not to be into music
so much.
He had been given a great education since he was a child.
He learned several foreign languages. In 1850, he entered
the Academy of Medicine in St Petersburg and took interest
in chemistry there. In 1856, he graduated from the school
with honors. After that, he worked for a military hospital,
but he could not stand to see blood of the wounded. Therefore,
he gave up to be a doctor and became a laboratory assistant.
In 1858, he received his doctorate in chemistry. He had done
brilliant job at the field. He was also a prime mover in the
formation of a medical college for women. From 1859 to 1862,
he traveled in Europe as a scientific mission. In 1863, he
married with Catherin Protopopova. She was an accomplished
pianist and the good partner for Borodin.
Even though he was busy with his career, he continued to compose
music. Borodin is known as one member of the Five.
The meeting with one another member of the Five, Balakirey
in 1862 improved Borodin's career as a composer. He composed
small amount of works because he could not find time to finish
his works in spare moments from his work. Essentially, he
was an amateur composer. Nevertheless, he had a great ability
in music. Also he was most fully qualified in the Five, he
was a practicing musician, good at four instruments and a
regular participant in chamber concerts. He also knew the
manner of composing, and had a scientific knowledge of Occidental
music with an oriental spontaneity. He used the traditional
Western European forms to compose his pieces, also did not
hesitate to use his new ideas. The type of Russian orientalism
which Borodin used for his music, attracted many Russian musicians
at that time.
As I wrote before, it took a long time for him to compose
each pieces, so, he wrote only two and a half symphonies.
Symphony No.1 was the first piece of them. He spent five
years to compose this piece. He looked up to Schumann
who influenced Borodin at the time. Yet this piece has the
Russian style, he used a folk song in the Scherzo and the
oriental lyricism of the slow movement. Symphony No.2
was his first mature work and demonstrates his style to people.
His 3rd symphony is unfinished although he clearly had the
whole of it in his head. He completed the spellbinding second
movement and sketched the first. His symphonic picture, In
the steppes of Central Asia is only one of his orchestral
work other than his symphonies. This piece is a tone poem
depicting an oriental caravan crossing the Central Asian plains
with an escort of Russian soldiers. The Bogatyrs(1867)
was his first and only complete opera. It was an unsuccessful
comic parody of grand opera. However; his another work, Prince
Igor is superb. He began to write this opera in 1869,
but left unfinished at his death eighteen years later. This
work completed by Rimsky-Korsakov and Glazunov
after Borodin's death. Borodin composed mature chamber music,
but, it comprises just two string quartets.
Borodin composed very few works, none the less he left brilliant
traces in the music history. He died suddenly in 1887 at a
masked ball.
