Borodin: Symphony No. 2 in B minor

Borodin worked on the symphony intermittently over roughly seven years, from 1869 to 1876. As a practicing chemist and medical researcher, he composed in his spare time, which was a constant source of frustration for him and contributed to the slow pace of many of his major works.

Borodin and his fellow members of 'The Five' (also called the Mighty Handful) described the symphony as evoking the atmosphere of ancient Russian epic poems and the legendary warrior-heroes known as bogatyrs. The powerful brass fanfares and march-like rhythms in the first movement are central to this heroic, medieval Russian character.

Although the symphony was performed during Borodin's lifetime—hearing it in 1877 under conductor Eduard Nápravník in St. Petersburg—Borodin was not fully satisfied with the orchestration and continued revising it. After his sudden death in 1887, his fellow composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, together with Alexander Glazunov, completed and polished the orchestration for publication.

Yes, the symphony embodies the aesthetic principles of the Moguchaya Kuchka (Mighty Handful), the group of five Russian nationalist composers that included Borodin, Mily Balakirev, César Cui, Modest Mussorgsky, and Rimsky-Korsakov. Their shared goal was to create distinctly Russian art music rooted in folk traditions and national history, independent of Western European conservatory training.