Alexander Borodin

Alexander Borodin was a Romantic composer and chemist of Georgian-Russian extraction. He was one of the prominent 19th-century Russian composers known as “The Five”. He was born on 12th November 1833 in Saint Petersburg, Russia and died there on 27th February 1887 aged 53.

Symphony No 3 (1887)
“Prince Igor” (first performed 1890)
“In the Steppes of Central Asia” (1880)
“Polovtsian Dances” (1887 – incomplete at death)

1833: Alexander Borodin was born on 12th November in St Petersburg, Russia. He was the illegitmate son of Prince Luka Stepanovich Gedevanishvili, a 62-year-old nobleman and his 24-year-old married lover, Evdokia Konstantinova Antonova. He was registered as Alexander Porforyevich Borodin, under the name of one of his Serf’s to avoid a scandal.

1840: His natural father frees him from serfdom aged seven and provides money for his mother and the boy. His mother never publicly acknowledges him but he is educated at home by private tutors.

1850: He enrols at the Medical–Surgical Academy in Saint Petersburg and studies chemistry. On graduation he spends a year as surgeon in a military hospital. 

1859: He takes up a postdoctoral position at Heidelberg University where he works on benzene derivatives with Emil Erlenmeyer. At the same time, he is a passionate cellist and writes a number of chamber works including a string sextet. He is heavily influenced by Felix Mendelssohn and makes friends with the composer Modest Mussorgsky whilst there.

1861: He meets and falls in love with Ekaterina Protopopova, a 29-year-old piano virtuoso who is a great influence on his musical career. Meanwhile as a chemist he is the first to show the radical halodecarboxylation of aliphatic carboxylic acids by synthesising methyl bromide from silver acetate.

1862: He meets the composer Mily Balakirev who gives him lessons and is inspired to complete his Piano Quintet and also starts work on his First symphony. He also works with other members dubbed “The Five”, namely Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Modest Mussorgsky and Cesar Cui.

1863: Borodin and Ekaterina marry and go on to adopt several daughters.

1864: Having completed his doctoral studies, he returns to St Petersburg to become a professor of chemistry at the Imperial Medical-Surgical Academy and continues with his chemical experiments. He also translates scientific papers, books and journals into Russian.

1868: He breaks off from his work on the Second Symphony and concentrates on his opera “Prince Igor” which includes the famous “Polovtsian Dances”. The opera was incomplete at his death and was finally finished by Rimsky-Korsakov and Alexander Glazunov.

1869: His Symphony No. 1 in E-flat major is first performed with Balakirev conducting.  He continues work on the Second Symphony.

1872: He establishes the first medical courses for women in Russia, co-founding the School of Medicine for Women in St. Petersburg and teaches there until his death. 

1873: He describes his chemical work to the Russian Chemical Society.

1875: He publishes his last full scientific article about the identification of urea in animal urine. Borodin begins composing his First String Quartet, much to the annoyance of Mussorgsky and other members of “The Five” who dislike chamber music.

1877: His Symphony No. 2 in B minor is given its premiere with Eduard Napravnik conducting but is not well received by the audience.

1880: He composes the symphonic poem “In the Steppes of Central Asia”.  His music is given a wider public by Franz Liszt who arranges a performance of the First Symphony in Germany.

1881: Borodin’s Second String Quartet is completed.

1882: He begins composing a third symphony, but this is left unfinished at his death, although two movements were later completed by Alexander Glazunov.

Alexander Borodin died on 27th February 1887 of a sudden heart attack at a ball at the Conservatory in St Petersburg. His wife Ekaterina died five months later. He is buried in the Tikhvin Cemetery at the Alexander Nevsky Monastery in St Petersburg alongside Balakirev, Cui, Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov and Tchaikovsky.

Despite being registered as an illegitimate birth, taking the name of a serf family, Alexander Borodin was actually brought up and educated by his mother Avdotya Antonova (whom he had to call Aunt when in public). She was twenty-four at his birth, the family housekeeper and daughter of a soldier. His rooms overlooked a military training ground and young Sasha heard bands rehearsing and he tried to play them on the household piano. His family hired one of the military musicians as his teacher and he learned to play the flute, oboe, clarinet, cello and various folk pipes. He was also taught languages, mathematics and drawing alongside his childhood friend Mikhail Shchiglyov. By the age of thirteen he had written a flute and a piano concerto and a string trio based on themes from Giacomo Meyebeer’s Opera “Robert le Diable”. Around the same time he developed a keen and lifelong interest in chemistry.

In 1856 he graduated from the Imperial Medical-Surgical Academy and was assigned to the Second Military Land Hospital as a resident. Here he met the young Modest Mussorgsky, a junior officer on duty. Mussorgsky performed at soirees organised by the hospital’s chief physician, and the two young men became friends over their shared love of music. In 1862 a friend, the physician Sergei Botkin, introduced him to the composer Mily Balakirev who in turn invited him to join his musical group which would become known as “The Kutchka “ (The Mighty Handful) or “The Five”. The group included Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Mussorgsky and César Cui and they regularly shared their compositions at Balakirev’s home. His scientific background influenced how he put together his compositions and he preserved his manuscripts with egg whites or a gelatine solution which prevented the ink from fading.

His main influences were Russian folk music and the nationalist ideals of “The Mighty Handful” who wanted to create a unique style of Russian music. He also had an affinity with the works of Joseph Haydn, Ludwig van Beethoven, Robert Schumann and Felix Mendelssohn and was also interested in oriental themes from Central Asia and the Caucasus as is evidenced in the “Polovtsian Dances” from the opera “Prince Igor”. Balakirev acted as his mentor encouraging his symphonic writing, especially the Symphony No. 1. He had also heard the operas of Richard Wagner in Germany and was impressed.

His main employment was as a chemist and music writing had to be done in his spare time and he referred to himself as a “Sunday composer”. He wrote forty works on chemistry and developed a method for synthesising brominated hydrocarbons (now known as the Borodin-Hunsdiecker reaction) and was among the first to obtain an organofluorine compound (benzoyl fluoride). He was also a friend of the discoverer of the periodic table of the elements, Dmitry Mendeleyev.

His wife Ekaterina Protopopova was an accomplished pianist whose performance introduced him to many of the western classics. “The Five” hated chamber music but Ekaterina encouraged him to write his String Quartet No. 2, with its famous Nocturne. 

Franz Liszt became a major supporter and championed his music in Western Europe and Liszt’s orchestration also influenced him. He dedicated his symphonic poem “In the Steppes of Central Asia” to the great Hungarian.

“The Five’s” influential critic and advisor Vladimir Stasov suggested the subject for “Prince Igor”, and provided historical sources for the libretto which the composer studied in great depth. His visit to the historical sites at Vladimir-Suzdal also gave him much material for the opera which he went on to compose slowly over the next eighteen years. His First Symphony was completed and premiered by Mily Balakirev at the Russian Musical Society. It received prolonged ovations and an enthusiastic review from Franz Liszt.

His career was cut short on 15th February 1887, during the final day of Maslenitsa (Russian Carnival Week). The Borodins hosted a ball at their home and in the middle of the dancing and conversation he collapsed on the floor. In 1909, over two decades later, he received international acclaim when the ballet fragment “Polovtsian Dances” caused a sensation in Paris. It took place during Sergei Diaghilev’s Russian Seasons and was staged by Mikhail Fokine.

Besides other members of the Five and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky he influenced later Russian Composers such as Alexander Glazunov, Anatoly Lyadov, Sergei Prokofiev, Igor Stravinsky and Dmitri Shostakovich. He also influenced French composers such as Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel and Olivier Messiaen with Ravel even composing “À la Manière de Borodine” in his honour. He influenced Ralph Vaughan Williams in England who was encouraged by Ravel to study Borodin’s music to learn orchestration “in points of colour rather than in lines”. His chemistry work also influenced colleagues such as Alexander Dianin, his son-in-law and successor at the Medical-Surgical Academy.

Strangely his music even influenced popular culture. In 1953 the Broadway musical “Kismet” by Robert Wright and George Forrest used themes from his Second String Quartet and melodies from “Prince Igor” giving rise to hit songs such as “Stranger in Paradise”, “Baubles, Bangles, & Beads” and “This is My Beloved”. In 1954 Borodin was actually given a posthumous Tony Award for the show.

List of compositions of Borodin.