About Me
Borodin was born in St. Petersburg on November 12, 1833 as the illegitimate son of a Georgian Prince named Gedeanov. As a result, he was registered under the name of one of his father's serfs. As a youth he was given an excellent education, spoke several languages, and learned in his early years to play the flute, the piano, and taught himself the cello. At the age of nine he wrote his first musical composition. He completed his medical studies in Russia and in 1859 went to Germany to specialize in chemistry. He developed parallel interests in music and chemistry, and qualified in medicine in 1856.
Throughout his life music was subordinate to his research and lecturing at the Academy in St Petersburg because, unlike most well known composers, he was not a full-time professional composer, but rather a chemist and a doctor. His appreciation of the music of Mendelssohn and Schumann and his acquaintance with Musorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Liszt and, most importantly, Mily Balakirev had a great impression on his musical compositions. It was mainly because of Balakirev that he embraced Russian nationalism, using Russian folksong in his music and joining the group eager to create a distinctive nationalist school known as 'The Five'. The piece contributing most to his early fame, particularly in western Europe, was the short orchestral tone poem On the Steppes of Central Asia composed in 1880 to commermorate the 25th anniversary of the czar Alexander II and dedicated to Liszt. Borodin never had enough time for composing; he joked that his musical friends wished he were chronically sick, since he worked in his laboratory when healthy and wrote music only when ill.
His most substantial achievement was undoubtedly the opera Prince Igor written between 1869 and 1887, completed and partly orchestrated by Rimsky-Korsakov and Glazunov. Despite the time that it took to compose and Borodins disjointed libretto it contains abundant richness in its arias evokes a powerfully Russian atmosphere and has fine choral sections including the dramatic Polovtsian Dances. Borodin wrote a number of chamber works, including several string quartets and the Trio in D Major for violin, cello, and piano. His songs are popular in Russia and are beginning to be heard in concert in the West. The worldwide success of the musical Kismet in 1953 the melodies of which are all derived from Borodin, led to a revival of interest in Borodin's works, which have been increasingly performed and recorded. He died in St Petersburg on 27 February 1887.Bio coutesy of http://www.citychoir.org.uk/Borodin.htm
