We still have conflicting reports as to the actual premiere date of Borodin’s Symphony No. 1. Some commentators place that event on 23 December 1868, while others located it on 4 January 1869. The proximity of these dates suggests that the December 1868 date might have been a trial performance at a school, while Balakirev presented the work in St. Petersburg in January 1869. According to some sources, the copyists had literally made hundreds of mistakes for the trial run, and everybody was still rushing to get them corrected for the performance at the Russian Musical Society.
Alexander Borodin: Symphony No. 1 in E-flat Major, “Adagio-Allegro-Andantino” (Malmö Symphony Orchestra; Jun’ichi Hirokami, cond.)
Reception and Origins
Alexander Borodin
Audience reception was somewhat muted, as the first movement was received coldly. Apparently, the audience went wild at the end of the Scherzo and maintained their enthusiasm to the end. The critic Alexander Serov wrote, “A symphony by someone called Borodin gave little satisfaction. Only his friends applauded.” Borodin, however, was not discouraged and immediately started work on his Second Symphony.
Mily Balakirev
The origins of Borodin’s 1st Symphony date back to 1862, when Mily Balakirev directly commanded Borodin to write a symphony. Borodin was the younger composer, and he constantly sought Balakirev’s guidance. Balakirev was very much the leader of “The Five,” and his enthusiasm and vision greatly inspired his colleagues. Balakirev quickly noticed that Borodin’s lyrical gift would lend itself to a more symphonic and expansive style.
Borodin went to work immediately, but his initial enthusiasm was frequently interrupted by his career as a chemist. Nevertheless, Borodin’s wife reports, “the symphony progressed with fabulous speed and strength; the outer movements first, the Scherzo in 1864, and the Andante a year later. In essence, Borodin completed the work in late 1866, but it took another two years to copy the parts and the score.
Alexander Borodin: Symphony No. 1 in E-flat Major, “Scherzo” (Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra; Gennady Rozhdestvensky, cond.)
Scientific Pursuit
Portrait of Alexander Borodin by Ilya Repin
Alexander Borodin considered medicine and science his primary pursuits, writing music only in his spare time or when ill. He studied chemistry as a teenager and later attended St. Petersburg’s Medical-Surgical Academy. His true passion was chemistry, and he worked under the renowned chemist Nikolay Zinin, who was impressed with his ability but concerned about his interest in music. Zinin advised Borodin to focus less on music, believing it would distract him from his scientific potential.
Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov reported, “When I visited him, I often found him at work in the laboratory next to his apartment. If he was sitting over his test tubes filled with some colourless gas, I usually told him that he was converting emptiness into vacuum. When he had finished working, he usually accompanied me into his apartment, where we commenced musical activities or discussions, in the middle of which he would often jump up and rush back into the laboratory to check that nothing had caught fire or boiled over. Meanwhile, he filled the hallway with incredible sequences of ninths or sevenths.”
Alexander Borodin: Symphony No. 1 in E-flat Major, “Andante” (USSR State Symphony Orchestra; Evgeny Svetlanov, cond.)
The Music
Borodin’s Symphony No. 1 introduction
The Symphony opens with a dramatic slow introduction that prepares for the Allegro proper. The bold and sweeping primary theme is mellowed by a lyrical contrast in the minor key. As expected, the development explores the implications of both themes by using dramatic modulations before a climatic outburst returns us to the main theme. Lively string passages and woodwind exchanges characterise the playful Scherzo, while the lyrical trio section is reminiscent of music from “Prince Igor.”
Full of deeply lyrical charm, the Adagio features a long and expressive melody originally written for cor anglais but later adapted for cello. Subtle harmonic modulations and a lush orchestration enhance the emotional depth of the movement. A brass fanfare initiates the energetic finale, which had been criticised for being “second-hand Schumann.” Yet, as Philip Heseltine writes, “So far as traditional symphonic form is concerned, the master craftsman of the last quarter of the nineteenth century was not Brahms but Borodin.”
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Alexander Borodin: Symphony No. 1 in E-flat Major, “Allegro molto vivo” (Dresden Philharmonic Orchestra; Michel Plasson, cond.)
