Classical pièce: Aleksandr Borodin — String Quartet No. 2

Aleksandr Borodin (1833–1887) is a key figure in Russian classical music. He and his contemporaries worked very hard to create a "Russian sound" somewhat distinct from the well-established structures of Western Europe. In particular, they borrowed heavily from the melodic and harmonic conventions of Russian folk music.

This quartet is firmly in that category. The flow of the melodies and the almost carefree treatment of harmony is characteristic of the Russian classical sound.

However, the movement structure (allegro/scherzo/andante/finale) comes straight from Western Europe. The movements are each basically in sonata form as well: just a few themes, introduced at the front, tied together in the middle, and then separated again in different keys at the end. I especially want to point out the first movement, where the exposition ends at a unison "A" [2:45] (the movement is in D); when that point is reached again in the recapitulation, the unison is a "D" [8:15].

Transliterating people's names is not a science. His name was actually spelled "Александр Порфирьевич Бородин". "Aleksandr" as I've given above is a pretty conservative transliteration, but you'll often see "Alexander", both of which I think independently derived from Greek. The only fair way to decide what to write is first by tracing who made the original transliteration (in this case Russian publishing houses publishing to Europe), and weighing that against accuracy and modern practice. After all, "Aleksandr" is hardly scarier than "Szymanowski".