“Polovtsian Dances” from Prince Igor
Alexander Borodin
Alexander Borodin was born in St. Petersburg on November 12, 1833 and died there on February 27, 1887. Although best known as a composer, his profession was that of a medical doctor and professor of chemistry and he distinguished himself in each of his careers. The Polovtsian Dances are derived from his most famous opera, Prince Igor (1890). The work is scored for chorus and large orchestra.
Alexander Borodin, one of the most important Russian composers of the second half of the nineteenth century, certainly led an unusual life. He was an internationally recognized scientist whose chaotic personal living habits resembled the stereotype of the mad scientist and absent-minded professor. Countless numbers of extended family (including pets) and friends populated the Borodin household constantly. A rather handsome fellow, he attracted several young women admirers, even after his marriage. One is left to wonder how Borodin ever found time for music.
Indeed, his enduring fame rests on a very small repertory of music—most notably his Symphony no. 2, his Second String Quartet, and excerpts from his opera, Prince Igor. Our recognition of his career as a chemist should not be passed over lightly. He studied and worked in Russia, Italy, and Germany, and his publications were widely published and read. His scientific credentials also included botany, zoology, anatomy, and crystallography. Music always formed an important part of his life, even though his profession lay elsewhere. Understandably, however, composition had to take a back seat to his “real” career. He was not the only Russian composer of his generation about whom this could be said. Modest Musorgsky, arguably the most important of the “Mighty Handful” (to which Borodin belonged, along with Musorgsky, Mili Balakirev, Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov, and César Cui), worked as a civil servant. Part-time composer that he was, Borodin never abandoned his interest in musical composition. His talents, which were abundantly evident even at an early age (his earliest composition, a polka for piano, was written when he was nine years old), gradually attracted attention. His first admirers were Balakirev and Cui, later to extend to Franz Liszt and Rimsky-Korsakov. Liszt’s advocacy in particular helped spread Borodin’s fame to Western Europe.
Audiences cherish Borodin’s music for its exotic, oriental lyricism, and brilliant orchestrations. All of this is on ample display in his Polovtsian Dances from Act II of Prince Igor. The opera itself is episodic in nature and offers the listener a vast panorama of picturesque scenes. The Polovtsian Dances, especially no. 17, have taken on a particular popularity in the concert hall, a notoriety that was only enhanced by their adaptation in the Broadway musical, Kismet (1953), in which one of its most lyrical tunes became known as “Stranger in Paradise.” Jazz musicians Paul Whiteman and Artie Shaw also made adaptations of Borodin’s music in the 1930s.
The translation of the choral part of Polovtsian Dance no. 17 translates as follows:
Fly away on wings of wind
To native lands, our native song,
To there, where we sang you freely,
Where we were so carefree with you.
There, under the hot sky,
With bliss the air is full,
There, to the murmur of the sea, mountains doze in the clouds.
There, the sun shines so brightly,
Bathing [our] native mountains in light.
In the meadows, roses bloom luxuriously,
And nightingales sing in the green forests;
And sweet grape grows.
There is more carefree for you, song…
And so fly away there!
Program Note by David B. Levy © 2012/2025
