SERGEY SMBATYAN Conductor

Alexander Borodin Symphony No. 2 

Composed intermittently between 1869 and 1876, the symphony became the most distinctive yet original work by Borodin. After a dismal failure during its premiere, the composer revised the work on the suggestions of Rimsky-Korsakov and the oeuvre was re-introduced to great acclaim in 1879. 

Russian critic Stasov reported that the programmatic work portrayed a gathering of Russian warriors in the first movement and a ‘bayan’ (mythic bard) in the third before a final scene “of heroes feasting to the sound of the gusli” as the composer coined the symphony ‘Heroic’.