Borodin: String Quartet No.1 in A major (1879)
Moderato – Allegro
Andante con moto
Scherzo:- Prestissimo – Trio:- Moderato
Andante – Allegro risoluto
It is all too easy for the musician to bemoan the fact that Borodin spent more of his time as a chemistry professor than as a composer. A statue erected to him in Russia actually pays tribute to his services to science rather than to music – and it should not be forgotten that in 1872 he had founded the first medical courses for women in the country. Conversely, the number of his musical works barely reaches fifty, of which two of the most important – the opera Prince Igor and the third symphony – were left unfinished at his death. Borodin himself complained of the “difficulty of being at one and the same time both a Glinka and a Stupishin [a civil servant], scientist, commissioner, artist, government official, philanthropist, father of other people’s children, doctor, and invalid . . . . You end up by becoming only the last”. These words were written at about the time he was at work on the second of his two string quartets; six years later, worn out and exhausted by domestic as well as professional troubles, he dropped dead at a fancy-dress party.
Borodin (with Mussorgsky) was perhaps the greatest of the group of Russian Nationalist composers collectively known as moguchaya kuchka, or “The Five”; and the writing of chamber music, with its strong Germanic associations, was frowned upon by his colleagues. His first quartet was completed in the summer of 1879, and was initially a great success; but then (from that work’s point of view!) Borodin made the mistake of composing another, which left its predecessor far behind in the popularity stakes, to the extent of almost total neglect in the West – indeed, No.2 is probably the most frequently performed of all Russian chamber works, and certainly appears to contain exactly the right combination of ingredients which go towards the making of a celebrated hit. Yet many of its characteristics can also be found in No.1, so maybe the earlier work’s greater length and complexity cause it to seem a tougher proposition than is actually the case. Maybe too the tunes don’t quite roll out so effortlessly at bath time; yet, as in No.2, the first movement is a winner precisely because of its glowing lyricism: melody after melody, all clothed in such fresh and lucid harmony and instrumentation, but bound together by a natural feeling for structure and symmetry into a movement of considerable weight and substance.
The ensuing Andante is worlds apart from No.2’s famous Nocturne: here, unusually in Borodin, that streak of melancholy – so characteristic of Russian artistic temperament – comes well to the fore, particularly so in the lonely two-part counterpoint at the beginning. The first two bars of the viola part actually come from a folk song which was a favourite of Borodin’s, The Vorobyevskiye Hills. There follows one of those very swift triple metre scherzos which almost every 19th century Russian composer has produced at one time or another (a further example appears in Borodin’s own first symphony). But then, wonderful surprise…. a masterstroke of originality and imagination suddenly transports us into a fantasy world of magic bells and barrel organs – revealing an exceptional grasp of the possibilities available through the instruments’ natural harmonics: the notes on the page seem to bear no resemblance at all to the melody we actually hear….. The reprise of the scherzo brings us half back to earth, but the finale’s dreamy introduction threatens to lift us into the clouds again…. eventually a rumbustious, polacca-like Allegro in A minor ensures that all feet are firmly planted on the ground. Borodin had explained that this composition was suggested by a theme from Beethoven’s late B flat quartet (Op.130), but few are likely to be bothered with trying to identify it as we are swept along by a veritable flood of catchy rhythms and pulsing energy. (In fact, you already missed it! Those whose curiosity does need to be satisfied could find bar 109 of the Rondo finale of Op.130 [ie not the Grosse Fuge] and see if anything reminds them of the first subject of Borodin’s opening Allegro…..).
Few works give us more pleasure or satisfaction in performance than the second quartet of Borodin: to witness listeners’ faces radiating warm response to this most generous music is inspiration indeed, and it has long been our hope (and expectation) is that his first quartet will continue to provoke similar reactions.
© Alan George
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