-Composer: Alexander Porfiryevich Borodin (12 November 1833 – 27 February 1887)
-Performers: Moscow String Quartet and Alexander Mndoiantz
Piano Quintet in c minor, written in 1862
00:03 – I. Andante
05:39 – II. Allegro non troppo
11:34 – III. Allegro moderato
While in Heidelberg in May 1861, Borodin met and fell in love with the pianist Yekaterina Protopopova, who soon became his wife, and who seems to have inspired in him a taste for her favourite composers, Chopin and Schumann. Later that year she fell ill, and the engaged couple wintered in Italy. There in May and June 1862 Borodin composed his Piano Quintet in C minor, the last work he would complete before his game-changing meeting with Balakirev.
That the twenty-eight-year-old composer was already ripe for adoption to the nationalist cause is evident from the opening theme, which has the contours and character of a Russian melismatic song. In fact the entire first movement is made up of variations, repetitions and derivations from this idea, dressed up in piano textures that could easily have come from Anton Rubinstein on the other side of the nationalist/academic divide.
The movement feels quite happy to end in A minor, rather than the tonic C minor, and it is in A minor that the scherzo second movement launches out, its main theme being another thinly disguised variation on motifs from the first movement. A bouncy violin theme provides contrast, and once again enthusiasm and directness of feeling, rather than sophisticated technique, carry the movement forward. The trio section rhapsodizes freely, never feeling obliged to put all five instruments together.
The finale is once again subtly derived motivically, and its initial motifs are never all that far from the surface. As with the cello sonata, the opening mood—wistful in this case—is a feint. The music soon becomes more robust, before taking flight à la Mendelssohn. Here Borodin attempts a full sonata from, complete with repeated exposition. From a Germanic perspective many ideas go to waste; from a Russian-nationalist one, however, it is entirely virtuous that they should be unhampered by excessive learning. This is music for use and enjoyment, unconcerned with conforming to ‘comme il faut’. The structure may be wayward, but this at least means that the listener is kept intrigued as to when and how it will end. Always apparently winding up, in the end it seems to wind down before reaching its full potential; but the soft conclusion suggests that Borodin knew what he was aiming at.