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Updated: May 23, 2025
The B-minor symphony makes us feel as though the very pagan joy and vigor that had once informed the assemblies and jousts and feasting of the boyartry of medieval Russia, and made the guzli and bamboo flute to sound, had waked again in Borodin; and in this magnificent and lumbering music, these crude and massive forms, lifted its wassail and its gold and song once more.
If there is any symphony that can be called pre-eminently virile and Russian, it is assuredly Borodin's second, the great one in B-minor. And in "Prince Igor" and the symphonic poem "On the Steppes," for the first time, continental Asia, with its sharp beat of savage drums and its oceanic wastes of grass, its strong Kurdish beverages and jerked steaks, comes into modern music.
In his opera a recitative of clear, passionate accent serves to introduce a pretty cavatina; "Prince Igor's" magnificent scene, so original and contained and vigorous, is followed by a cloying duet worthy of a Tchaikowsky opera. The adagio of the B-minor Symphony, lovely as it is, has not quite the solidity and weight of the other movements.
He was nevertheless obliged within a week to sell the mask to the caster by whom he was employed in Pfannenschmied Street. Schwalbe needed ready money. The caster hung the mask by the door at the entrance to his shop. At the end of December Daniel found himself with not a cent of cash, so that he was obliged to sell his sole remaining treasure, the score of the Bach mass in B-minor.
No composer has ever scattered abroad ideas with more liberal hand. Compositions like the B-minor piano-sonata, the tone-poem "Mazeppa," the "Dante" symphony, whatever their artistic value, fairly teem with original themes of a high order, are like treasure houses in which gold ornaments lie negligently strewn in piles.
But the foot-stamping of Strauss and his remarks reminded me of Gumprecht's description of Liszt's B-minor Sonata as the Invitation to Hissing and Stamping. Zerbinetta's vocal flower-garden must be shorn of many roses and lilies before it will be shapely. In addition to being heartbroken over the perfidy of Theseus she was scared to death.
Your B-minor sonata, however unsatisfactory its actual quality, remains one of the magistral works of the sort. For few works better exhibit the various ranges of the instrument, better contrast different volumes of piano-sound. The sonata actually lies on different planes, proceeds from various directions, delimits a solid form, makes even Beethoven's seem flat and two-dimensional by contrast.
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