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Alexander Borodin
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Alexander Borodin (November 12, 1833 - February 27, 1887) was a Russian composer who made his living as a chemist. He was a member of The Five, or "The Mighty Handful", a group of composers dedicated to producing a specifically Russian music.
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Alexander Borodin was a much loved and greatly respected figure, but heart attacks and a bout of cholera seriously undermined his health. However it was entirely in character that early in 1887 he returned from an important academic engagement to attend a fancy dress ball at the Academy.
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From early childhood, Alexander Borodin, born in St Petersburg in 1833, showed musical promise learning the flute, cello and piano and dabbling in composition. The natural born child of Prince Gedeanishvili, who from his standpoint in Russian society thought composing an inferior occupation, Borodin enrolled in the Academy of Physicians specialising in Chemistry. Graduating in 1856, he spent the next years studying medicine, achieving distinction as a chemist, as an author of scientific textbooks and, as Adjunct-Professor of Chemistry in the Medico-Surgical Academy of St Petersburg, a teacher and administrator. Where did his much-loved music fit in? Indeed, this was a major problem for him. He wrote to a colleague: "As a composer who wishes to remain anonymous, I am shy about confessing my musical activity.
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Though far from prolific as a composer -- by day he was a scientist noted for his research on aldehydes -- Alexander Borodin ... earned a secure place in the history of Russian music. As a creative spirit, Borodin was the most accomplished of the Russian nationalists composers. He had a particular gift for the distinctive stripe of exoticism so evident in his most frequently performed work, the Polovtsian Dances from the opera Prince Igor. The illegitimate son of a Georgian prince and a doctor's wife, Borodin enjoyed a comfortable upbringing. As a child he learned to play several instruments and tried his hand at composing, but other aptitudes directed his formal education. He studied chemistry at St. Petersburg's Medico-Surgical Academy, obtaining his doctorate in 1858 and pursuing further studies in Europe until 1862.
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Georgian prince, Alexander Borodin was given an excellent education as a child including lessons in flute and piano. He taught himself the cello and started composing at age fourteen with his Concerto in D for flute and piano and Trio in G for two violins and cello. While his primary profession, chemistry, occupied most of his time through research and lecture activities, he composed throughout his life. He studied composition under Mily Balakirev who influenced Borodin toward a nationalistic Russian style. Along with Modeste Mussorgsky, Cesar Cui, Mily Balakirev, and Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov, Borodin became a member of the group of composers know as “The Mighty Five,” and together they defined Russian musical nationalism in the nineteenth century.
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Alexander Borodin was born in St Petersburg at November 2nd, 1833, when his father was sixty-two and his mother was twenty-five. He was descended from the King of Imeretia. Also his father was a Georgian prince, Gedianov. However; he had to be the lawful son of one of Gedianov's serfs because his mother was the wife of an army doctor. He had been interested in music since his early ages. He learned how to play flute at his very early age.
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Alexander Borodin