Today is the birthday of Alexander Borodin (1833-1887), member of the Mighty Handful, the group of Russian composers driven by a desire to develop a distinctly Russian voice, set apart from European musical expression. Borodin, a surgeon and chemist by trade, traced Georgian ancestry through his father - a nobleman, though his birth record lists one of his fathers peasants as the birth father and source of the composers name. In contrast to program music (music conceived to tell a narrative in some fashion beyond the music itself), Borodin gave us many examples of absolute music, works written without any preconceived, non-musical representational objective. Robert Wright and George Forrest borrowed Borodins melodies for the musical, Kismet. The show won the 1954 Tony Award for best musical, technically making Borodin one of the few exclusively 19th century composers to win a 20th century award. Heres his Dance of the Maidens from Polovtsian Dances (taken from his opera, Prince Igor). Youll recognize the tune as Strangers in Paradise from Kismet.
Posted on: Wed, 12 Nov 2014 12:58:51 +0000
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