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Top 10 Facts about Alexander Borodin

Alexander Borodin was a romantic composer and chemist of Georgian Russian extraction.  He was one of the prominent 19th-century composers known as the five.

Borodin is best known for his three symphonies, two strings Quintets, and his opera Prince Igor he worked on the prince Igor in 1869 and worked on it for 18 years.

Borodin was fluent in many languages, such as Russian, French, German, Italian, and English. This made his composition easier.

He obtained a doctorate in organic chemist and subject of his thesis was on the analogy of arsenic acid with phosphoric acid in chemical and toxicology behavior.

In this article, you will discover the top 10 facts about alexander Borodin.

1. He was an illegitimate son

Alexander Borodin was born in St. Petersburg as an illegitimate son of 62-year-old Georgian nobleman Lukas Stipanovich gnedevanishvili and a married 25-year-old Russian Evdokia Konstantinovna Antonova.

The nobleman registered alexander as one of his Russian serfs, Porfiry Borodin hence his last name. Due to this registration, Alexander and his nominal father, Porifriy, became serfs of Alexander’s biological father, Luka.

2. Alexander Borodin’s education life

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Alexander being registered as a serf prevented him from enrolling in a proper gymnasium (secondary school), but he received a good education in all the subjects through private tutors at home.

In 1850 he enrolled in the medical surgical academy in Saint Petersburg and pursued a career in chemistry.

After graduating, he spent a year as a surgeon in a military hospital, followed by three years of advanced scientific study in western Europe.

3. Alexandra Borodin was a member of the Russian Five

The group was also known as the mighty five or Moguchiya Kuchka. The group consisted of five Russian composers; Ceaser Cui, Alexander Borodin, Mily Balakiver, Modest Mussorgsky, and Nikolay Rimsky Korsakov.

The group banded together in the 1860s to create a truly national school of Russian music, free of stiffing influence of Italian opera, German leaders, and other Western European forms.

The group was centered in St. Petersburg and was often considered a rival faction to the more cosmopolitan Moscow-centered composers such as Pyotro Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

Tchaikovsky regularly used actual folk songs in his music, while Borodin and Rimsky Korsakov emphasized traditional European training in their works

4. Borodin was a chemist

Borodin was a chemist and doctor professionally. He made a major contribution to organic chemistry.

Even though he was a composer, he regarded medicine and science as his primary occupation. As a chemist, Borodin made significant achievements.

He is best known for his works concerning organic synthesis, being among the first chemist to demonstrate nucleophilic substitution, and being a co-discover of the aldol reaction.

5. He was a professor

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Borodin gained great respect throughout his chemist career, especially in his aldehydes work. Between 1859 and 1862, he had a postdoctoral position at Heidelberg University.

In 1862 Borodin returned to St. Petersburg to begin his professorship of chemistry at the imperial medical surgical academy.

While at the academy, he spent the rest of his scientific career doing research, lecturing, and overseeing the education of others.

At Imperial Medical Surgical Academy, he worked on the self-condensation of small aldehydes through aldd reaction. This discovery is jointly credited to Borodin and Charles Adolphe Wurtz.

In 1872 alexander Borodin established a school focusing mainly on women to teach them medical courses.

6. Alexander Borodin was a promoter of education

In 1872 Borodin founded the school of medicine for women in St. Petersburg and taught there until 1885.

The school gave women the opportunity to learn medical courses and acquire higher medical education.

The school has continued to evolve with several departments being introduced, and it has also become a research institute.

Today the school embraces many medical fields, including hematology, molecular genetics, cardiac surgery, nephrology, pharmacology, oncology, and cardiology.

The university maintains an international partnership with health care institutions and universities worldwide. The collaborative work is carried out in three principal fields; education, research, and patient care.

7. Alexander Borodin was a romantic composer

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In 1862 alexander began taking lessons in composition from Mily Balakirev while under Balakirev’s Tutelage in composition, he began his Symphony No. 1. It was first performed in 1861, with Balakirev conducting the performance.

During the same year, Borodin started on his Symphony No.2 in B minor. It received a successful performance in 1879 by the free music school under Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov’s direction.

In 1880 he composed the popular symphonic poem on the steppes of central Asia. After three years, he started composing a third symphony which he left unfinished at his death. Alexander Glazunov later completed it.

8. Prince Igor was alexanders most historical Russian opera

He composed prince Igor in 1868, which contains the polovstian dance, regularly performed as a stand-done concrete work forming mostly the best Borodin’s known composition.

Borodin left the prince Igor incomplete at his death; the opera was completed after his death by Rimsky- Korsakov and Alexander Glazunov.

The opera’s setting was based on the 12th century when the Russians, commanded by Prince Igor of Seversk, decided to conquer the barbarous polovtsians by traveling eastward across the steppes.

9. He was an enthusiastic chamber music player

His interest in chamber music increased during his chemist studies in Heidelberg between 1859 and 1861.

During these early years, he yielded many chamber works, such as a string sextet and a Piano Quintet. Borodin based his pieces’ thematic structure and instrumental texture on those of Felix Mendelsohn.

 In 1875 Borodin started his first-string quartet, demonstrating mastery of the string quartet form. A second quartet written in 1881 displayed strong lyricism as in the third movement’s popular nocturne.

The first quartet is richer in changes of mood. The second quartet has a more uniform atmosphere and expression.

10. Alexander Borodin gained fame outside the Russian empire

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Alexander’s fame outside the Russian Empire was made possible by Franz Liszt, who arranged the symphony N0. 1 Germany 1880 and a performance by the Comtesse de Mercy-Argenteau in France and Belgium.

Borodin’s music is majorly noted for its strong lyricism and rich harmonies, along with some influence from western composers and his music also has a Russian style.

Alexander’s unusual harmonies and passionate music proved to have a lasting influence on the younger French composers Debussy and Ravel. In 1954 Borodin was awarded a Tony award for this show.