Alexandr Borodin, Professional organic chemist and Amateur Composer
Borodin is world renowned for his achievements in classical music, particularly his opera, Prince Igor. What the majority of people do not know is that he was predominantly a highly skilled organic chemist, whilst his composing was only a part-time hobby which he had largely taught himself. This essay reveals something about his dual life and will go on to discuss the link between science and music, which appears a strong one.
Alexander Porfir’yevich Borodin was born in St Petersburg (Leningrad) on 12 November 1833. He was the illegitimate son of an elderly Russian Prince. According to common practise, the child was registered as the lawful son of one of his father’s servants. He was well educated from an early age; learning many languages including German, French and English. By the age of 14 he could speak all of these languages and also had a grasp of Italian and was writing technical essays in that language. At the age of eight, he showed an interest in music and in musical instruments. He showed early talent and was able to reproduce what he heard played by a military band, on the piano. His mother encouraged him to learn a musical instrument and engaged a bandsman to teach Borodin the flute. By the age of nine he had already started composing and composed a polka for piano. At the age of nine, his mother invited a boy of Borodin’s age to come and learn with him. They learnt the piano together and also several other musical instruments. Whilst learning music, Borodin also developed an interest in elementary chemistry, making fireworks and galvanism (making electricity by chemical means). A picture of Borodin is shown below:
In 1850, Borodin entered the Medico-Surgical Academy, where his closest friends were the German Students. He studied botany, zoology, crystallography, anatomy, and above all chemistry, which became a passion of his. In his third year, he became a student of the chemistry professor N.N Zinin, who allowed him to work in his laboratory although he would sometimes have to tell him off for devoting too much time to his music. On 6 April 1856 Borodin finished the course at the academy being highly praised. He was immediately appointed assistant in general pathology and therapy, and posted for practical experience to the second military hospital as a house surgeon, an occupation that left him little time for his music. In August 1857 he accompanied a senior oculist to an international ophthalmic congress in Brussels, and visited Paris. On 17 March, he read a paper "On the action of Ethyl-iodide on Hydrobenzamide and Amarine" to the physicomathematical section of the Russian Academy of Sciences and it was printed in the bulletin for that year. This was his first published scientific work. On 15 May, he received a doctorate for his dissertation "On the analogy of arsenic acid with phosphoric acid in chemical and toxicological behaviour. This was the first time in the history of the academy that a dissertation had been written and defended in Russian rather than Latin. Although this resulted in him receiving the degree of Doctor of Medicine, he would faint at the sight of blood and he never practised the profession!
It is worth at this point, pausing for a moment to look at some of the detail of the chemistry that he performed. This research, whilst not well known, was still valid and important at the time. The details shown below are of his first scientific paper:
Hydrobenzamide (1) was made by reacting concentrated ammonia with benzaldehyde, had been discovered by a French scientist in 1836. When it is heated to about 130C it rearranges to amarine (2). Organic analysis at this time was very primitive and organic chemistry was still not very organised. Borodin used different structural formulae to the ones we are used to using now. Nevertheless, Borodin correctly concluded from studying the action of ethyl iodide on the two compounds that hydrogen is attached to nitrogen in amarine but not in hydrobenzamide. Many years later he published a paper describing the decomposition of nitrosoamarine to lophine (3).
After receiving his doctorate, he spent the next few years travelling around many different countries. He spent the summer in Russia analysing mineral waters and studying their medicinal properties. In the autumn of 1859, he went again to Western Europe to continue his studies. Before he left Russia, he met for the second time the young Mussorgsky. Mussorgsky is of course very well remembered nowadays, particularly for his work "Pictures at an Exhibition. Borodin was not able to spend much time with Mussorgsky as he was often out of the country, so he remained an acquaintance rather than a friend.
He spent most of the ensuing years at Heidelberg, where his friends included Mendeleev, Sechenov, and Botkin working with the German chemist Erlenmeyer. In July 1960 he made a trip down the Rhine, visited Rotterdam, and in September enjoyed a holiday in Italy with Mendeleev. The photograph below shows Gitinsky, Borodin, Mendeleev, and Olevinsky:
He also did some work in Paris. He read a paper entitled "the monobromo derivatives of valeric and butyric acids" He also studied the action of bromine on the silver salts if these acids. He noted a different reaction with silver acetate. This was the forerunner to the Hunsdiecker reaction. They visited Genoa and Rome together and Borodin went on alone to Paris. In 1861 he and Mendeleev visited Freiberg to hear the famous organ and attended an international congress in Karlsruhe. In May 1961, Borodin made the acquaintance at Heidelberg of a 29-year-old Russian Lady, Ekaterina Sergeyevna Protopopova. Sent to Germany for treatment for Tuberculosis; she was a brilliant pianist, an admirer of Chopin, Liszt, and Schumann. She quickly converted Borodin to her tastes. Their friendship developed quickly and they fell in love. A picture of her is shown below:
In October, Ekaterina had to go to Italy because of her poor health. The warmer climes would aid her recuperation. Borodin accompanied her to Pisa intending to leave her there. Both Borodin and Ekaterina where very upset that they were to be parted and said:
"Time was up, but Alexander could not bring himself to leave me. It was a time of moral torture for the both of us. He went out. I was alone. I cannot describe ho painful it was to be left alone. I threw myself on the bed and wept bitterly."
He had gone on an official visit to see two eminent Italian chemists, Lucca and Tassinari. They asked him stay on and work with them. He commented on his reasons for staying in Italy:
"They have a first class laboratory, nice and bright and very convenient. They said I could use it whenever I liked.... Things couldn’t have worked out better; the fluoric combinations, that I am beginning to study, demand experiments carried out in the open. In Heidelberg it is too cold for that, but here I can work on them throughout the winter."
Ekaterina was overjoyed by this and says in her memoirs after hearing what Borodin said
"It was too much for me. Again the tears flowed, but this time for quite a different reason. And how quickly I began to mend."
Whilst in Italy, Borodin studied the formation of acid salts such as KHF2 comparing them with simple salts such as KF and contrasting the acid component with water of crystallisation. He was the first to prepare benzoyl fluoride by reacting such an acid salt with benzoyl chloride. He described the produce as an oily, colourless liquid with a more irritating smell than its chloride. The work he did in Italy was reported as "Contributions to the history of fluorides and the preparation of benzoyl fluoride." Borodin concluded that "Organic fluorides resemble the corresponding chlorides more closely than the inorganic fluorides resemble the inorganic chlorides."
In Italy, his fiancée lived in the same flat as him. They stayed there during the winter of 1861-2 and the spring of 1862. Borodin worked hard in the laboratory, spending mornings and sometimes whole days there. He also developed his musical interests in Italy. They became acquainted with a musician by the name of Carrani. He introduced them to the director of the Menocci music school, and from this moment, they spent a lot of time with him. He divided he time evenly between working in the laboratory and composing music. It is not known exactly when they left Italy sufficit to say that they arrived back in Russia on 20 September 1862. His fiancée left and went back to her mother’s house in Moscow and he returned to St Petersburg.
Immediately he arrived back, Borodin became taken up by various activities as Zinin’s assistant in the Academy of Physicians. He was appointed to the post of adjunct-professor on 8 December 1862 and began to lecture to students in the Academy, in organic chemistry. Students described him as having "A brilliant and fascinating personality." In the late autumn of 1862, there occurred one of the most important meetings of Borodin’s life. He became acquainted with the eminent composer Balikirev. He was the head of a small group of composers that consisted of Mussorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakov amongst others. The team of these four composers and Cui formed what are known as the "mighty handful" or the "Russian Five." This name was coined by the critic Stassov in 1867.
On 17 April 1863 Borodin was married to Ekaterina. Their marriage took place in St Petersburg where they had to spend the whole of the summer, as a result of Borodin being involved in some problems with building a new chemistry laboratory, and for other reason connected with the Academy. That autumn they moved into a new flat in a building belonging to the natural history section of the academy. This is where they lived for the rest of their lives.
Borodin’s life at this time was more or less an even mix of music and chemistry. He performed more important research. An account of his work on Benzil described how the action of sodium amylate on benzil produced benzillic acid in the well-known rearrangement. Borodin concluded, "perhaps the trace of soda contained in the amylate itself exerted an influence on the reaction" Borodin also examined the vigorous action of zinc ethyl on chloroiodoform. Ethene was the major product. It was a common trait of Borodin to work alone. Consequently, he often had insufficient facilities to do such complex research. It is also difficult to verify whether his discoveries were valid. His major work turned to work on aldehydes. In August 1869 Kekulé started work in a similar field and wrote "...Borodin gave the result of having started to work on the same matter, and I will therefore not continue any further experiments with valeradlehyde." Borodin also appeared to make one discovery although a contemporary of his is remembered for the discovery. Wurtz discovered that aldol decomposes to the corresponding condensed aldehyde. Borodin did similar work, but had slightly different results.
Toward the end of the 1860’s and the early 1870’s he began to spend a lot less time working on his chemical research and started to compose in earnest. He did continue to do some research and published some papers in journals. He published a report on some of his earlier work, on the constitution of hydrobenzamide and its conversion into amarine. He also wrote about the quantitative determination of urine substance, which used the action of sodium hypobromite on Urea. Borodin also championed the cause of women in education, running courses in medicine. He also started his opera Prince Igor and some other less well known pieces of music. In 1877 he travelled abroad again, first to Jena to enrol some students at the university and then to Weimar where he was welcomed by Franz Liszt. They obviously got on well, as he dedicated a piece to Liszt. He also found time to visit Heidelberg to reminisce on his previous work. These memories prompted to compose more music, in particular his second string quartet, which was dedicated to his wife.
During the next decade, Borodin’s life consisted mainly of composing and little of research chemistry. He died on the 15 February 1887. It was a very sudden death, at a fancy dress party. The post-mortem examination was carried out and showed that the cause of death was a burst artery in the heart. The artery wall had become so fragile that it could not support the pressure of the blood. When this happened he had fallen and struck his temple, which caused a minor brain haemorrhage. According to the doctor performing the post-mortem, it was surprising that Borodin had lasted so long with his heart in such a condition. In circumstances such as these, death could have occurred at any time. There was a very large crowd at Borodin’s funeral. He was buried in the Alexander Nevsky cemetery next to the grave of Mussorgsky. His tombstone is shown on the next page:
His friends Rimsky-Korsakov and Glazunov published the rest of his compositions. Ekaterina was not present at the funeral and when told of his death took it very badly. She became very ill and died just a few months later. Ten years after his death income from Borodin’s work was substantial with Prince Igor being worth 50,000 roubles in itself.
Knowing that Borodin was a scientist as well as a composer I decided to investigate whether there were any other connections between chemistry or science and music. I was surprised to find that there were numerous examples. Examples include Michael Arne, the brother of the composer of Rule Britannia, Sir William Herschel, Patrick Moore, Thomas Campion, and surprisingly Hildegard von Bingen. John Christie founder of the Glyndebourne festival was primarily a science teacher. In addition, John Shirley-Quirke, one of Britain’s foremost bass-baritone soloists, has a degree in chemistry from Liverpool University. The most surprising person and the one shrouded in much controversy is what Sir Edward Elgar did with regards to chemistry.
There are conflicting stories about Elgar’s achievements, but he appears to have had an interest in making hydrogen sulphide. There is evidence that he built a machine to make the gas, but no evidence of a patent. It was said to be used in lots of schools located around where he lived, in Worcestershire. Elgar’s interest in chemistry flourished when he became bored with composing. It was said that chemistry was his favourite science, and that his laboratory presented an imposing array of bottles, dishes, flasks, Bunsen burners, pestles, mortars, retort and all the paraphernalia of a serious chemist. The laboratory was in the cellars of his house although later he converted his shed into his laboratory and had a telephone link. His laboratory in his shed is shown on the next page:
The laboratory was called the Ark because of the nesting of doves on the shed. Elgar seemed to dabble in a number of different experiments, ranging from making a phosphoric substance that appeared to spontaneously combust, to making soap. He had no formal training in chemistry and his research seems to be nothing more than intelligent curiosity. When he moved house away from Malvern, he turned away from chemistry and switched his attention to microscopes. He marvelled at the world that the microscope was able to reveal.
It can be seen from this essay the diverse range of talents that were possessed by Borodin and that he was a most interesting character. It also showed that Borodin was not unique in his command of science and music together. Whether Borodin devoted enough time to his music is debatable, but he did make advances in chemistry, but is very rarely remembered for making these advances. His contribution to music was very substantial and many of his pieces are still regularly performed.
References
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank York University for the kind loan of Reference 1-3 for use in this essay.