Prince Igor: Chorus of the Peasants (string orchestra arr.)

Main page for Prince Igor

• Story: The village of Putivl has been destroyed by the Polovtsians. The villagers lament the fate of their home.
• Borodin’s music is a stylized version of a traditional Russian folk style, heterophonic polyphony.¹
  • Heterophonic polyphony is a texture resulting from two simultaneous versions of the same melody:² for example, a sung melody accompanied by the same melody, ornamented, on an instrument. This style is common in Slavic, Middle Eastern and Asian musics.³

1. Richard Taruskin, “Prince Igor,” Grove Music Online (2001), accessed August 5, 2019,  https://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/grovemusic/view/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.001.0001/omo-9781561592630-e-5000005840.
2. Harvard Dictionary of Music, 4^th ed., s.v. “Heterophony” (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2003).
3. “Heterophony,” Encyclopedia Brittanica (April 28, 2017), accessed August 5, 2019, https://www.britannica.com/art/heterophony.