Title: Quartett Nr. 2 für 2 Violinen, Viola und Violoncello
Description: Borodin's two numbered string quartets, dating from the last fifteen years of his life, are still fundamentally salon-orientated, albeit on a more ambitious scale than his previous chamber works and reflecting lessons learned from the examples of Beethoven and Mendelssohn. The first quartet was explicitly 'inspired by a theme of Beethoven' (part of the replacement finale to the Große Fuge in the B flat major quartet, Op 130). Its doubly Germanic adoption of genre and theme did not go down well with Musorgsky or with Vladimir Stasov, the godfather and chief public advocate of the Mighty Handful. The String Quartet No 2 in D major, too, has a Beethoven connection, in that it was premiered at an Imperial Russian Musical Society concert in St Petersburg on 7 February 1882 (some sources say 9 March) alongside Beethoven's second 'Razumovsky' quartet. However, by this stage in his career, Borodin had thoroughly absorbed his classical lessons and the quartet exudes a sovereign freedom of invention. Borodin's second string quartet is more obviously tuneful than his first and has therefore become the more popular. It was composed in the summer of 1881 and is dedicated to the composer's wife, some say in recognition of their twenty years together. Borodin had in fact just returned from another German tour, taking in Heidelberg, so the connection may well have been on his mind. The first movement opens with the first of many glorious melodies that run throughout the work, heard on Borodin's own instrument, the cello, but soon passed to the first violin. With the second subject, featuring the same two instruments, comes a more energetic texture, but the tone remains more serenade-like than strenuous. These ideas submit to traditional sonata-form routines, generating little or no tension, yet radiating such warmth and generosity that few would dream of complaining. The second movement is a one-in-a-bar scherzo, with the theme initially on the viola. Its slower second idea (swaying violin lines in thirds) is derived from the first by inversion, and the movement is remarkable above all for the freedom of its development (rather than trio) section. The contrasting theme gained an unexpected afterlife when given the famous lyrics 'Baubles, bangles and beads' in Robert Wright and George Forrest's 1953 musical Kismet, set in the Persia of the Arabian Nights. The same show also appropriated the main theme of the succeeding notturno, for the song 'And this is my beloved'. There can hardly be any complaint at this, since one of Borodin's hallmarks, most conspicuous in his unfinished opera Prince Igor, was precisely this kind of evocation of Oriental sultriness. The languishing cello melody over rocking, syncopated accompaniment returns us to the expressive world of the first movement. The faster central section at last allows the second violin to join in the fun, with some playful dialoguing on rising scales that briefly enliven the essentially languid mood. The boisterous last movement outlines two motifs in the introduction, which are then combined in artful counterpoint. Seemingly in a perpetual state of becoming, thanks in part to the repeated references back to that introduction, the finale falls into a perfectly regular, textbook sonata form, while its themes gracefully effect a reconciliation between Beethovenian terseness and Russian-orientalist luxuriance. - David Fanning on hyperion-records.co.uk