Born in St Petersburg, 31 Oct/Nov 12, 1833
Died in St Petersburg, 15/Feb 27, 1887
- Borodin was the illegitimate son of a Russian prince, and as such was considered a serf. His father had him freed and educated; he studied medicine and became research chemist and chair of chemistry at Medical-Surgical Academy at St. Petersburg.1
- Borodin had minimal formal music training. He composed with encouragement and guidance of Mily Balakirev, who wanted to train Russian musicians to create a distinctly Russian style of classical music, as opposed to the Germanic-dominated composers before them.2
- Borodin was part of an influential circle of St. Petersburg Russian Nationalist composers who gathered around Balakirev, sometimes known as Les cinq (Balakirev, Mussorgsky, Cesar Cui, Rimsky-Korsakov and Borodin). 3
“Balakirev’s circle consisted of Balakirev, Cui, Mussorgsky, Borodin, and me (the French have retained the denomination of “Les Cinq” for us to this day).”
Rimsky-Korsakov, on Les Cinq, from The Chronicle of My Musical Life (1909)4
- Balakirev and his circle are also called ‘The Mighty Handful’ because of a 1867 press quote from music critic Vladimir Stasov, regarding a concert of music by Balakirev, Rimsky-Korsakov and others.
“God grant that our Slav guests may never forget today’s concert; God grant that they may forever preserve the memory of how much poetry, feeling, talent, and intelligence are possessed by the small but already mighty handful of Russian musicians.”
Vladimir Stasov5
Sources
- Robert W. Oldani, “Borodin, Aleksandr Porfir′yevich,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed August 5, 2019, https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-0000040687.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Chronicle of My Musical Life (New York: Knopf, 1923), 286.
- M.D. Calvocoressi and G. Abraham, Master Musicians Series: Mussorgsky, (London: J.M.Dent & Sons, Ltd., 1946), 178.