Borodin, Aleksandr Porfirevich [key], 1833–87, Russian composer, chemist, and physician. He studied at the academy of medicine in St. Petersburg, where he later taught chemistry. He also helped found a school of medicine for women. An amateur musician, he had little musical training, consisting mainly of study with Balakirev. His principal works are two symphonies; several fine songs; an orchestral tone poem, In the Steppes of Central Asia (1880); and an opera, Prince Igor, left unfinished, which Rimsky-Korsakov and Glazunov completed. It was first performed in St. Petersburg in 1890. He was one of a group of Russian nationalist composers known as The Five.
See biography by G. Abraham; V. I. Seroff, The Mighty Five (1948); M. O. Zetlin, The Five (tr. 1959).
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