Alexander Borodin

i have made it sufficiently clear that we owe the modern school which has reached its highest development in berlioz and liszt and what are the dangers that we have inherited from them besides the positive gain which we enjoy in the works of these two masters we have also learned that there are other arts and forms of composition besides those of the sonata rondo and variation which seem so unavoidable it has disclosed to the imagination a rich though dangerous field of action where precious fruit may still be reaped as it is customary in every great revolutionary movement that some shoot beyond the mark so must here also be confessed that music while men were striving to increase its power of expression at times was lowered from its sacred pedestal to become the slave of words and conceptions the boundary line over which music cannot step without becoming unmusical is very hard to recognize we are in need of a larger number of new and significant works in order that it may be more clearly drawn if the younger generation of our composers comes to know that music is not a language of conceptions if it recognizes the demand for form in composition and it learns strictly to separate the symphonic from the dramatic style then we need not give up the hope of hearing in the future symphonies about which to use wagner's words something may be said provided that some one comes who knows all this without being told at all events the modern school has been more stimulating and fruitful than the new classical it has become the yeast in the bread of the philistines and its fermentation is more and more apparent in germany and abroad Thus I believe that some remarkable modern symphonies in the old form, and therefore belonging to the new classical school, would not have been composed exactly as they were if Berlioz and Liszt had not lived.

I refer, among others, to the symphonies of Sinding and Borodin, which I have already mentioned.

In our days we see also desertions from the old school to the new.

Dvorak, no longer a young man who can be considered as a pupil of Brahms and who has attained great success with his symphonies, has suddenly turned to program music and is composing symphonic poems.

¶¶

From Alexander Borodin's Prince Igor, the Polovetsen dances were performed by the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra and Chorus.

You're with Radio Southland on 96.4 FM and it's light, bright and classical and Kenneth McKellar sings for us down in the Glen.

At hush of eventide, O'er the hills beyond the Clyde, I go roaming to my heaven.

¶¶ And that was The Procession of the Nobles from Rimsky-Korsakov's opera Allada.

And coincidentally enough, hand on heart, I didn't realise till I checked the finished playlist, it's another Russian composer, a close contemporary of Rimsky-Korsakov, one Alexander Borodin, who is the composer of this next one.

He also wrote an opera ballet with a good dramatic line and some excellent music, based on the Russian ruler Igor Borodin.

Prince Igor as we know him, and this time the band is Fodens.

PIANO PLAYS ¶¶ ¶¶ ¶¶ ¦ Thank you.

Walter Morales with the Edgewood Symphony Orchestra, Galbraith and Borodin, a program that is at 7.30 on October 24th.

This is going to be at First Presbyterian Church of Edgewood.

So that's the most important thing to know because the venue they were going to use is unavailable.

It's been a lot of fun.

I mean, I'm looking at the program and the beautiful brochure that you have, the ESO Season 39.

And it begins with Galbraith and Borodin.

Of course, you'll have a holiday extravaganza in December, a night in Paris in March, and then cathedrals in sound in May.

So tell me a little bit about this program that's happening this Saturday evening.

... j- just-

I think there's a piece of music Damien called On the Steppes of Central Asia, I think by Borodin.

Does it get you fighting, though?

Perhaps.

See-

I think by Borodin.

Yeah

... does it get you fighting, though?

Like other great Russian composers, Tchaikovsky arrived at music by a circuitous route, almost by accident.

Mussorgsky, one recalls, was long an officer in the Tsar's army before he switched to music, and Borodin always regarded music as a secondary pursuit to his medical practice and his laboratory experiments in chemistry.

Tchaikovsky was first a lawyer, but soon he found court action and the preparation of briefs tiresome and unsavory toil, so at twenty-one he returned to his first love, which was music.

Born on May seven, eighteen forty, Tchaikovsky had begun to study piano at the age of seven.

At least the composer admits as much in letters to Najika von Meck and the conductor Napravnik.

But his friend Kashkin insisted the piece was requested for the ceremonies consecrating the Moscow Cathedral of the Saviour intended to symbolize Russia's part in the Napoleonic struggle.

The Overture accordingly pictured the great events beginning with the Battle of Borodino, September 7, 1812, and ending with Napoleon's flight from Moscow after the city was set aflame.

To make it more effective, the work was to be performed in the public square before the cathedral.

Also, I don't think I included this, but Nobel studied under Zinnen.

Remember Zinnen from our Borodin episode? Oh my gosh,

yes.

Yes.