Alexander Borodin

A chemist by profession, Alexander Borodin was the illegitimate son of a caucasian prince and a Russian mother. From an early age, he showed an evident aptitude for both science and music (he played the piano, flute, and cello). After completing his medical training, he worked as a military doctor, before taking up an appointment at the medico-Surgical Academy in St Petersburg. Throughout his career, he led a double life as a musician and as a chemist, with the result that his musical output suffered, as is clear from his slender work-list and from the large number of pieces that he left unfinished. A member of the "Mighty Handful" that also included Mussorgsky, Rimsky-Korsakov, Cui, and Balakirev, he was no less successful in the field of chamber music than in that of large-scale symphonic works such as his Second Symphony and his "music picture", In the Steppes of Central Asia. A fervent nationalist, he introduced Oriental touches into his music, together with impressionistic harmonies that look forward to Debussy and Ravel. His opera Prince Igor was first staged three years after his death and, together with Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov, is rightly regarded as a high point of Russian nationalism.