Borodin, Alexander Porfirevich - "Intermezzo" from the Petite Suite for String Quartet Mvt. 2 String Quartet |
Composer : | Borodin, Alexander Porfirevich (1833 - 1887) | ||||
Instrumentation : | String Quartet6 other versions | ||||
Style : | Romantic | ||||
Arranger : Publisher : | MAGATAGAN, MICHAEL (1960 - ) | ||||
Date : | 1870 | ||||
Copyright : | Public Domain | ||||
Added by magataganm, 27 Dec 2018 Though far from prolific as a composer -- by day he was a scientist noted for his research on aldehydes -- Alexander Borodin nevertheless earned a secure place in the history of Russian music. As a creative spirit, Borodin was the most accomplished of the Russian nationalists composers. He had a particular gift for the distinctive stripe of exoticism so evident in his most frequently performed work, the Polovtsian Dances from the opera Prince Igor. The illegitimate son of a Georgian prince and a doctor's wife, Borodin enjoyed a comfortable upbringing. As a child he learned to play several instruments and tried his hand at composing, but other aptitudes directed his formal education. He studied chemistry at St. Petersburg's Medico-Surgical Academy, obtaining his doctorate in 1858 and pursuing further studies in Europe until 1862. Upon his return to Russia, he became a professor at his alma mater; but even as an academic career apparently loomed before him, he maintained a devotion to music. Under the influence of Mily Balakirev, whom he met in 1862, Borodin became interested in applying elements of Russian folk music to works for the concert hall and stage. He joined a circle of like-minded composers -- Balakirev, Rimsky-Korsakov, Mussorgsky, and Cui -- famously dubbed "The Five" or "The Mighty Handful." The influence of Balakirev in particular is at once in evident in the Symphony No. 1 in E flat major (1867). Borodin began the much craggier Symphony No. 2 in B minor in 1869, the same year he commenced labor on his most important work, the opulent four-act opera Prince Igor. While it took Borodin more than five years to complete the symphony, work on Prince Igor dragged on for decades. Borodin, who had in the meantime completed a number of other works, left the opera unfinished at the time of his death. It was completed posthumously by Rimsky-Korsakov, a skillful craftsman and a particularly apt match for Borodin's colorful musical character, and Alexander Glazunov. Glazunov also completed the Symphony No. 3 in A minor, which the composer had been working on until the time of his death. Aside from teaching chemistry and conducting research, Borodin helped found a series of medical courses for women in 1872. Such activities, as well as the poor health that plagued him in the 1880s, drained the energy that he might have devoted to composition. Still, as a part-time composer, Borodin jeft a significant oeuvre: more than a dozen worthy songs, miscellaneous piano pieces, two string quartets (the second of which contains a ravishing Nocturne often performed in an arrangement for string orchestra), and the popular tone poem In the Steppes of Central Asia (1880). He died while attending a ball in St. Petersburg on February 27, 1887. Borodin wrote little enough -- an opera, a couple of symphonies, a tone poem for orchestra, a couple of string quartets, a string quintet for chamber musicians, and a handful of songs for voice and piano -- and next to nothing of any substance for the piano alone. The largest of his piano works is the Petite Suite, seven brief movements composed over a period of five years, dedicated to the Countess Louise de Merci d'Argenteau and published in 1885. Following Borodin's death in 1887, Glazunov edited and orchestrated a number of his works, including the Petite Suite. In Borodin's autograph, the score bears the dedication "Petit poeme d'amour d'une jeune fille" (Little poems on the love of a young girl). Each movement of the work also has a brief explanation following it. The austerely liturgical first "Au couvent" (At the Convent), "The Church's vows foster thoughts only of God"; the shyly charming second Intermezzo, "Dreaming of Society Life"; the grandly joyous "Mazurka I," "Thinking only of dancing"; the lyrically romantic "Mazurka II," "Thinking both of the dance and the dancer"; the voluptuously lyrical "Reverie" (Dreams), "Thinking only of the dance"; the sensually chaste Serenade, "Dreaming of love"; and the closing romantic Nocturne, "Lulled by the happieness of being in love." Clearly, Borodin had a specific program for the whole work, a work that is part dance, part dream, and all love. Source: AllMusic (https://www.allmusic.com/composition/petite-suite-for- piano-mc0002375472 ). Although originally composed for Solo Piano, I created this Interpretation of the "Intermezzo" from the Petite Suite (Mvt. 2) for String Quartet (2 Violins, Viola & Cello). Sheet central : | Petite Suite (11 sheet music) | |
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