From early childhood, Alexander Borodin, born in St Petersburg in 1833, showed musical promise learning the flute, cello and piano and dabbling in composition. The natural born child of Prince Gedeanishvili, who from his standpoint in Russian society thought composing an inferior occupation, Borodin enrolled in the Academy of Physicians specialising in Chemistry. Graduating in 1856, he spent the next years studying medicine, achieving distinction as a chemist, as an author of scientific textbooks and, as Adjunct-Professor of Chemistry in the Medico-Surgical Academy of St Petersburg, a teacher and administrator. Where did his much-loved music fit in? Indeed, this was a major problem for him. He wrote to a colleague: "As a composer who wishes to remain anonymous, I am shy about confessing my musical activity. For others it is their chief business, their occupation and their aim in life. For me it is a relaxation, a pastime that distracts me from my principal business, my professorship. I love my profession and my science, the Academy and my students. My teaching is of a practical nature and therefore takes up much of my time. I have to be constantly in touch with my pupils because in order to direct the work of the young people one must always be close to them. If, on the one hand, I want to finish my opera, on the other hand, I am afraid of devoting myself to it too assiduously and thus throwing my scientific work into the shadow".

Word was out, though, that Borodin was composing an opera, Prince Igor, and he continued: "There is no longer anything to conceal or be ashamed of. Like a girl who has lost her innocence and by that fact has acquired a certain sort of liberty, come what may, I must finish the work. It is curious the way all members of our circle agree in their praise of my work. While controversy rages among us on every other subject, thus far everyone is pleased with Igor - Mussorgsky, Cui and Rimsky Korsakov. Such is the history of child Igor. Illegitimate and prematurely born". Borodin's mausoleum displays two wreaths suspended from the iron railings. One is engraved with musical themes, the other with formulas of chemical bodies and the titles of scientific books. An important essay on fluorite of benzoin, the invention of the nitrometer, Prince Igor and the Second Symphony were products of the same mind.

Prince Igor was begun in 1871 and was unfinished when Borodin died in 1887. The overture had not even been written down but Glazounov, who had heard Borodin discuss it and play it frequently on the piano, was able to reproduce not only the content but the exact orchestration in accordance with the composer's wishes. The Second Symphony was equally long in gestation with Borodin pondering its composition for six years. The score was shown to Liszt in Weimar who was delighted, advising the composer to alter nothing and to pay no attention to those who might find it strange. The première was a fiasco, probably due to tempos that exaggerated the intensity of the orchestral brass. Borodin rescored the symphony, erasing some of the military-band heaviness found in the original. Subsequent performances affirmed the symphony's true greatness, and it has since earned a reputation as one of the most popular and dramatic of nineteenth century Russian symphonies. Mussorgsky best summed up its essence perhaps when he said that "The strength of a lion is behind this symphony. Of all previous music I could at most place Beethoven's Eroica beside it".

Borodin's Second Symphony contains four movements of contrasting mood, colour and tempo that nevertheless form a whole with underlying unity. The first movement, heralded by a sombre eight-note motto theme, invokes an atmosphere of epic legend. The scherzo is a masterpiece of orchestral deftness and syncopation contrasting with the oriental languor depicted in the trio. The slow movement, imbued with the spirit of Russia, leads directly to the festive and orchestrally resplendent finale.