The Borodin Boardroom

Started by BachQ, April 12, 2007, 08:33:18 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.

ChamberNut

I'll just add that I enjoy the SQ# 1 equally (if not more) than the more popular SQ# 2.  May be the best 1 & 2 string quartets out there (if you take everyone's SQ # 1 and 2).

Archaic Torso of Apollo

Whenever I listen to one of the small catalogue of masterpieces by Borodin, it makes me wish he'd ditched chemistry early and just concentrated on music. Then we'd have more than just 2.5 symphonies, 2 quartets, one (completed by someone else) opera, etc. He could have been one of the really great 19th-c. composers (better than Tchaikovsky, IMHO) if he hadn't spent so much time with the test tubes.
formerly VELIMIR (before that, Spitvalve)

"Who knows not strict counterpoint, lives and dies an ignoramus" - CPE Bach

DFO

Quote from: ChamberNut on April 21, 2009, 12:07:54 PM
I'll just add that I enjoy the SQ# 1 equally (if not more) than the more popular SQ# 2.  May be the best 1 & 2 string quartets out there (if you take everyone's SQ # 1 and 2).

Agree. And after him, I vote for Smetana's. His second (and unknown) SQ is a marvel.

Tom 1960

Just to revive this thread if only temporarily. I've been listening to Borodin's symphonies today and really getting a great deal of enjoyment from. Especially listening to the 2'nd symphony/movement 3 which is absolutely gorgeous. Count me in as another person who would love this work performed much more often.

Reverend Bong

Quote from: Velimir on April 22, 2009, 12:20:19 AM
Whenever I listen to one of the small catalogue of masterpieces by Borodin, it makes me wish he'd ditched chemistry early and just concentrated on music.

it wasn't just the aldehydes that kept him from composition, you know, it was his highly disorganised domestic life:  his ailing and demanding pianist wife, the innumerable friends, relatives and students who made themselves at home in his flat, distracting him with conversation, eating meals at odd hours and even sleeping in the unfortunate man's bed, when it wasn't occupied by some of the innumerable cats that also infested the place.  He was also extremely diffident about his own music, and could rarely be persuaded to perform it even for friends, let alone finish anything and present it to the public.  It's a wonder that he finished anything.

Leo K.



VERY HAPPY with this recording of Borodin's symphonies. Started off with no.2 and was blown away!

No.2 is one of my favorite symphonic works. When I was a young college student I was able to attend a live performance and had one of the best concert experiences of my life. I love Borodin. I love that he had a day job and didn't finish his music. I can identify with that kind of artist.


Leo K.

Quote from: Reverend Bong on November 08, 2012, 04:09:16 AM
it wasn't just the aldehydes that kept him from composition, you know, it was his highly disorganised domestic life:  his ailing and demanding pianist wife, the innumerable friends, relatives and students who made themselves at home in his flat, distracting him with conversation, eating meals at odd hours and even sleeping in the unfortunate man's bed, when it wasn't occupied by some of the innumerable cats that also infested the place.  He was also extremely diffident about his own music, and could rarely be persuaded to perform it even for friends, let alone finish anything and present it to the public.  It's a wonder that he finished anything.

Reminds me of Charles Bukowski's poem,

'The Life of Borodin'


the next time you listen to Borodin
remember he was just a chemist
who wrote music to relax;
his house was jammed with people:
students, artists, drunkards, bums,
and he never knew how to say: no.
the next time you listen to Borodin
remember his wife used his compositions
to line the cat boxes with
or to cover jars of sour milk;
she had asthma and insomnia
and fed him soft-boiled eggs
and when he wanted to cover his head
to shut out the sounds of the house
she only allowed him to use the sheet;
besides there was usually somebody
in his bed
(they slept separately when they slept
at all)
and since all the chairs
were usually taken
he often slept on the stairway
wrapped in an old shawl;
she told him when to cut his nails,
not to sing or whistle
or put too much lemon in his tea
or press it with a spoon;
Symphony #2, in B Minor
Prince Igor
On the Steppes of Central Asia
he could sleep only by putting a piece
of dark cloth over his eyes
in 1887 he attended a dance
at the Medical Academy
dressed in a merrymaking national costume;
at last he seemed exceptionally gay
and when he fell to the floor,
they thought he was clowning.
the next time you listen to Borodin,
remember...

SonicMan46

Quote from: Leo K on December 30, 2012, 09:08:16 AM
 

VERY HAPPY with this recording of Borodin's symphonies. Started off with no.2 and was blown away!...................

Hi Leo - love that Brilliant offering; also have Schwarz & his Seattle band inserted above - our own Brian dubbed this a 'Bargain of the Month' in his MusicWeb Review, which prompted my purchase - have not done any back-to-back comparisons.  Dave :)

P.S. Glad to see another Bix fan!  :D


Leo K.

ah! Excellant, another Bix fan!  8)

Thanks Dave for that recommendation and link to Brian's review. Will look at that now.


In other reading today I came across this short note, written by George Kauffman, writer of an article on Aleksandr Borodin, published in Leonardo 21, No. 4, 429-436, 1988).

QuoteAlthough the Borodins had no
children, Aleksandr adopted several
orphans (all girls)-Elizaveta (Lisa)
Gavrilovna Balaneva, Elena A.
Guseva, and Gania Litvineko-who
lived with them. The first married
Aleksandr Pavlovich Dianin, Borodin's
student and successor at the
institute, and became the mother of
Sergei Aleksandrovich Dianin, Borodin's
biographer (N. A. Figurovskii
and Yu. I. Solov'ev, Borodin: A Chemist's
Biographyt, ranslated by Charlene
Steinberg and George B. Kauffman,
Springer-Verlag: Berlin, Heidelberg,
New York, 1988, pp. 106, 118
).

During the summer of 1868, 22-year-old
Anna Nikolaevna Kalinina, the sister
of the composer Nikolai Nikolaevich
Lodyzhenskii, became infatuated with
the 34-year-old Borodin, which
aroused Ekaterina's jealousy. Borodin
told his wife of the affair in a letter
dated 25 October 1868: "My feelings
toward her do not alter the way I feel
toward you, and I am giving only that
which I cannot give to you; it is nothing
more than that 'feeling of mine
towards children'."

Anna's influence led Borodin to
compose the songs, "The Sea
Princess", "My Songs Are Filled with
Poison", and "The False Note" (ibid.,
p. 60).

from a note by
GEORGE B. KAUFMAN
Chemistry Department
California State University



Leo K.

Prince Igor.



It's like a movie which makes you hold your chair, or a person beside you, stronger and stronger and showing gentleness afterwards, like repenting for something you’ve done intentionally. But, it was just a possession by this beautiful and heavenly melody. Oh, this opera just has me wanting to listen to it again, and again, and again. I’m now taken… thinking how Borodin and I were similar. When I first heard Prince Igor, I got goosebumps all over my body which radiated excitement, passion and pleasure which I have never felt before, listening to another classical composition. Melody is just overwhelming with emotions, rich and pure. You could almost feel like you are the main character of the story.

I love the choir writing, constantly being louder and calmer from time to time, ready to impress with its destruction way of emotional release. He also discovered a method for the identification of urea in animal urine. He suffered poor health, and had several minor heart attacks and survived cholera in early stages of his life. He died suddenly during a ball at the Academy, in which he had worked. He is buried in Tikhvin Cemetery at the Alexander Nevsky Monastery, in Saint Petersburg. As a pharmacy student, love for chemistry and also love for music, made me and wisdom... I sometimes naively compare Borodin and myself, knowing that we both loved classical music and chemistry, since that was his life’s call. He started Medico-Surgical Academy in 1850, pursued a career as a chemist. Even though he’s been noticed as a composer of opera Prince Igor, his chemistry career was also very successful: he discovered Hunsdiecker reaction (known by its name to the West, but in Soviet Union it was presented as Borodin reaction), he was co-credited with the discovery of Aldol reaction

What to say, whenever I hear it again, I go speechless. It's a soul melting, outstanding classical piece... Piece which he has never finished, caught by the death earlier than he was supposed to. Thanks to Nikolai-Rimsky Korsakov and Alexander Glazunov, this classical masterpiece has been brought to its end, ready to astonish the audience, the world, and of course me.


North Star

Quote from: Leo K. on January 18, 2013, 12:07:16 PM
Prince Igor.



It's like a movie which makes you hold your chair, or a person beside you, stronger and stronger and showing gentleness afterwards, like repenting for something you've done intentionally. But, it was just a possession by this beautiful and heavenly melody. Oh, this opera just has me wanting to listen to it again, and again, and again. I'm now taken... thinking how Borodin and I were similar. When I first heard Prince Igor, I got goosebumps all over my body which radiated excitement, passion and pleasure which I have never felt before, listening to another classical composition. Melody is just overwhelming with emotions, rich and pure. You could almost feel like you are the main character of the story.

I love the choir writing, constantly being louder and calmer from time to time, ready to impress with its destruction way of emotional release. He also discovered a method for the identification of urea in animal urine. He suffered poor health, and had several minor heart attacks and survived cholera in early stages of his life. He died suddenly during a ball at the Academy, in which he had worked. He is buried in Tikhvin Cemetery at the Alexander Nevsky Monastery, in Saint Petersburg. As a pharmacy student, love for chemistry and also love for music, made me and wisdom... I sometimes naively compare Borodin and myself, knowing that we both loved classical music and chemistry, since that was his life's call. He started Medico-Surgical Academy in 1850, pursued a career as a chemist. Even though he's been noticed as a composer of opera Prince Igor, his chemistry career was also very successful: he discovered Hunsdiecker reaction (known by its name to the West, but in Soviet Union it was presented as Borodin reaction), he was co-credited with the discovery of Aldol reaction

What to say, whenever I hear it again, I go speechless. It's a soul melting, outstanding classical piece... Piece which he has never finished, caught by the death earlier than he was supposed to. Thanks to Nikolai-Rimsky Korsakov and Alexander Glazunov, this classical masterpiece has been brought to its end, ready to astonish the audience, the world, and of course me.

Chemistry and classical music, what more could a chap want, eh?
Can't say that I'm too familiar with Borodin, though, except for SQ no. 2, the Polovtsian Dances & March from Prince Igor. Might as well try his 2nd symphony from YT now, Martinon & LSO.
"Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it." - Confucius

My photographs on Flickr

Leo K.

Quote from: North Star on January 18, 2013, 12:25:38 PM
Chemistry and classical music, what more could a chap want, eh?
Can't say that I'm too familiar with Borodin, though, except for SQ no. 2, the Polovtsian Dances & March from Prince Igor. Might as well try his 2nd symphony from YT now, Martinon & LSO.

I think his 2nd symphony is my favorite of his orchestral works.


North Star

Quote from: Leo K. on January 18, 2013, 02:24:06 PM
I think his 2nd symphony is my favorite of his orchestral works.
I liked what I heard from the first movement, but I'll have a listen to the whole piece later.
"Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it." - Confucius

My photographs on Flickr

Leo K.

Quote from: North Star on January 18, 2013, 02:33:00 PM
I liked what I heard from the first movement, but I'll have a listen to the whole piece later.

I would like to know what your thoughts are when you do  8)

mc ukrneal

Love Borodin. My first exposure to it was the Polovtsian Dances on a Pops Cavier LP with the Boston Pops and Arthur Fielder. And to come full circle, I just acquired the CD this past week of that very same disc.
Be kind to your fellow posters!!

Mirror Image

Borodin was a great composer. Symphony No. 2 is just fantastic and I love the In the Steppes of Central Asia.

SonicMan46

Well, I was listening to some Borodin today (i.e. Symphonies, Piano Music, & String Quartets) - own just one SQ recording - the Borodin SQ (first image below, left) which dates from 1980 (originally on Melodiya) and was performed w/ Kopelman/Abramenkov (violin), Shebalin (viola), & Berlinsky (cello) - this has been in my collection for years and have none others, SO would like a different one!

Now there is another 're-mastered' Borodin SQ recording on Chandos (middle pic) - performers are the same except Dubinsky is one of the violinists - he was the founder of the SQ (another name then) in 1945; but these four performers were the Borodin String Quartet from 1953 to 1974; in reviewing the liner notes from this Chandos release HERE, the exact original recording date is not given (assume some time in the 1960s?).  But, bottom line, two different recording sessions , probably 15 or so years apart and w/ the original violinist replaced.

Not really sure that I need to replace my current CD w/ the other, but the recording w/ the Lindsays is more recent and has received some excellent reviewss - also, inexpensive on the Amazon MP (have not checked BRO, yet) - SO, any comments and suggestions of one who wants 'another' performance of the Borodin SQs?  Thanks - Dave :)

   

Leo K.

Quote from: SonicMan46 on February 12, 2013, 02:22:48 PM
Well, I was listening to some Borodin today (i.e. Symphonies, Piano Music, & String Quartets) - own just one SQ recording - the Borodin SQ (first image below, left) which dates from 1980 (originally on Melodiya) and was performed w/ Kopelman/Abramenkov (violin), Shebalin (viola), & Berlinsky (cello) - this has been in my collection for years and have none others, SO would like a different one!

Now there is another 're-mastered' Borodin SQ recording on Chandos (middle pic) - performers are the same except Dubinsky is one of the violinists - he was the founder of the SQ (another name then) in 1945; but these four performers were the Borodin String Quartet from 1953 to 1974; in reviewing the liner notes from this Chandos release HERE, the exact original recording date is not given (assume some time in the 1960s?).  But, bottom line, two different recording sessions , probably 15 or so years apart and w/ the original violinist replaced.

Not really sure that I need to replace my current CD w/ the other, but the recording w/ the Lindsays is more recent and has received some excellent reviewss - also, inexpensive on the Amazon MP (have not checked BRO, yet) - SO, any comments and suggestions of one who wants 'another' performance of the Borodin SQs?  Thanks - Dave :)

   

Sorry Dave I missed your post!

Those Borodin sets are all ones I don't have yet, it seems the Lindsays is a real good set, will have to check that out on the Amazon MP store.

Leo K.

I've been collecting a few more Symphony no.2's:


Kurt Sanderling


Konstantin Ivanov

Both of these sound very promising.

SonicMan46

Quote from: Leo K. on February 16, 2013, 06:12:52 AM
Sorry Dave I missed your post!

Those Borodin sets are all ones I don't have yet, it seems the Lindsays is a real good set, will have to check that out on the Amazon MP store.

Hi Leo - I went ahead and ordered the Lindsays - excellent reviews & a good price on the Amazon MP - Dave :)