Prince Igor

Borodin was one of the most naturally gifted of Russian composers, yet his principal vocation as a distinguished research chemist and lecturer meant that he sadly spent little time on music. The summit of his small yet precious output is his epic opera Prince Igor, which focuses on the culture clash between medieval Russia and the warring Tatars of Central Asia. Borodin’s musical imagination goes into overdrive with the famous Polovtsian Dances from Act II, a riot of intoxicating orchestral colour, driving rhythms and indelible “Oriental”-style melodies, which provided a creative launchpad for Stravinsky’s breakthrough ballet, The Firebird. Borodin worked on Prince Igor off and on for more than 18 years; it was still incomplete when he died of a heart attack in February 1887. It was left to Rimsky-Korsakov and Glazunov to put Borodin’s manuscripts into some coherent order and complete the orchestrations. Glazunov’s photographic musical memory proved invaluable along the way, as he was able to recall in every detail the overture as played to him by Borodin one evening on the piano.