This week on “Sweetness and Light,” we’ll be thinking cool and happy thoughts with an hour of night music – nocturnes, music reflective of the night sky, even sleep!
I hope you’ll join me for selections by Alexander Borodin, Antonín Dvořák, Jacques Offenbach, Claude Debussy, Manuel Ponce, John Field, and light music masters Charles Ancliffe, Archibald Joyce, and Robert Farnon.
Everything’s fine when the sun is asleep! I’ll be a fool for cool on “Sweetness and Light,” this Saturday morning at 11:00 EDT/8:00 PDT, exclusively on KWAX, the radio station of the University of Oregon!
The connection between music and science has been much remarked upon. In the case of Alexander Borodin, he was a doctor and chemist.
Borodin was born on this date in 1833. As a boy he had had piano lessons, but he received his formal education at the Medical-Surgical Academy in St. Petersburg. He then served as a surgeon in a military hospital before undertaking three years of advanced scientific study in Western Europe.
In 1862, he returned to his alma mater to teach. There, he managed to establish courses for women. In 1872, he founded a school of medicine for women. He devoted the remainder of his scientific career to research. He is co-credited with the discovery of the aldol reaction, a means of forming carbon-carbon bonds in organic chemistry.
Around the time of his return to the Academy, he met Mily Balakirev, the persuasive advocate of Russian nationalism in music, who took the chemist under his wing and supervised the composition of his Symphony No. 1. Borodin began work on his Symphony No. 2 in 1869. Since regarded as a particularly successful blend of Slavic drama and lyricism with European classical form, it was not a particular success at its premiere in 1877.
Borodin became sidetracked while working on the piece by his absorption in an opera on the subject of Prince Igor. This was to become his most significant musical contribution and one of the most important Russian historical operas. Because of his other commitments and repeated distractions, the work was left unfinished at the time of his death. It was completed by his friends and colleagues, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Alexander Glazunov.
The big show-stopper, of course, is his “Polovtsian Dances,” which has been used to sell everything from records to cleanser.
Borodin was yet another beneficiary of the exceeding generosity of Franz Liszt, whose contributions in this regard are not widely enough acknowledged. It was Liszt’s advocacy as a conductor that brought Borodin to the attention of European audiences. In gratitude, the composer dedicated “In the Steppes of Central Asia” to Liszt in 1880.
Borodin was also embraced by the French Impressionists, who admired his unusual harmonies. Of course, he achieved even greater renown when melodies from his works became the basis for the musical “Kismet” in 1953. In 1954, he was honored with a posthumous Tony Award!
Since for Borodin music was basically an avocation, something to which he devoted himself mostly during holidays or when he was otherwise unable to report to work, it became a running gag among his friends that they’d wish him poor health.
“In winter I can only compose when I am too unwell to give my lectures,” he wrote. “So my friends, reversing the usual custom, never say to me, ‘I hope you are well’ but ‘I do hope you are ill.’”
He had plenty of experience with illness. The composer survived cholera and suffered several heart attacks. He finally dropped dead during a ball at the Academy in 1887.
As federal offices lag behind on their observances of Veterans Day (which was yesterday, thank you very much), we’ll listen to works by American composers who served in the U.S. Armed Forces. Join me in the 5:00 hour for music by Romeo Cascarino, Samuel Barber, William Grant Still, and a new release on Navona Records/PARMA Recordings by Samuel A. Livingston of The Blawenburg Band.
We’ll also mark the birthday, beginning at 4:00, of everyone’s favorite chemist-composer, Alexander Borodin, with some of his music, as well as that of his colleagues of the Mighty Handful, or the Russian Five.
Finally, we’ll remember Slovak soprano Lucia Popp on the anniversary of her birth.
It’s a late afternoon and early evening of musical and military veterans, from 4 to 7 p.m. EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
The connection between music and science has been much remarked upon.
In the case of Alexander Borodin, he was a doctor and chemist. Borodin was born on this date in 1833. As a boy he had had piano lessons, but he received his formal education at the Medical-Surgical Academy in St. Petersburg. He then served as a surgeon in a military hospital before undertaking three years of advanced scientific study in Western Europe.
In 1862, he returned to his alma mater to teach. There, he managed to establish courses for women. In 1872, he founded a school of medicine for women. He devoted the remainder of his scientific career to research. He is co-credited with the discovery of the aldol reaction, a means of forming carbon-carbon bonds in organic chemistry.
Around the time of his return to the Academy, he met Mily Balakirev, the persuasive advocate of Russian nationalism in music, who took the chemist under his wing and supervised the composition of his Symphony No. 1. Borodin began work on his Symphony No. 2 in 1869. Since regarded as a particularly successful blend of Slavic drama and lyricism with European classical form, it was not a particular success at its premiere in 1877.
Borodin became sidetracked while working on the piece by his absorption in an opera on the subject of Prince Igor. This was to become his most significant musical contribution and one of the most important Russian historical operas. Because of his other commitments and repeated distractions, the work was left unfinished at the time of his death. It was completed by his friends and colleagues, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Alexander Glazunov.
The big show-stopper, of course, is his “Polovtsian Dances,” which has been used to sell everything from records to cleanser.
Borodin was yet another beneficiary of the exceeding generosity of Franz Liszt, whose contributions in this regard are not widely enough acknowledged. It was Liszt’s advocacy as a conductor that brought Borodin to the attention of European audiences. In gratitude, the composer dedicated “In the Steppes of Central Asia” to Liszt in 1880.
Borodin was also embraced by the French Impressionists, who admired his unusual harmonies. Of course, he achieved even greater renown when melodies from his works became the basis for the musical “Kismet” in 1953. In 1954, he was honored with a posthumous Tony Award!
Since for Borodin music was basically an avocation, something to which he devoted himself mostly during holidays or when he was otherwise unable to report to work, it became a running gag among his friends that they’d wish him poor health.
“In winter I can only compose when I am too unwell to give my lectures,” he wrote. “So my friends, reversing the usual custom, never say to me, ‘I hope you are well’ but ‘I do hope you are ill.’”
He had plenty of experience with illness. The composer survived cholera and suffered several heart attacks. He finally dropped dead during a ball at the Academy in 1887.
