Borodin was a composer and a chemist, founding and teaching at the St Petersburg School of Medicine for Women.
He formed part of a group known as the Five (Balakirev, Cui, Mussorgsky, and Rimsky-Korsakov) who focused on writing especially Russian sounding music, with titles such as In the Steppes of Central Asia and today’s choice, Prince Igor, which focuses on a 12th century prince against invading Polovtsian (Cuman) tribes in 1185.
The collected dances appear at the end of Act 2 of the opera and there are a variety of themes ranging from a highly challenging fast clarinet melody, through to the upper voice lyrical melody (opening with a rising fifth). The most famous part is the offbeat full chorus/orchestra ‘Poyte pesni slavy khanu! Poy!’.
Incidentally this fits to ‘Tinky! Winky! Dipsy! La-La! POH!’.
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