The Borodin “Nocturne”

I don’t remember exactly when I first encountered Alexander Borodin’s “Nocturne.” My recollection is that while I was still an employed church-organist, a couple requested that I play this piece for their upcoming wedding. This was likely in the time I was organist at Holmes St. United Methodist Church (Huntsville, AL, USA). I believe that the couple provided me with a piano arrangement, which I rearranged for organ. At that time, I made note to someday record this piece in its string-quartet format.

Alexander Borodin (1833-1887) truly was a 19th-century Renaissance man. Professionally, he practiced as a doctor, chemist, and composer. He was outstanding in all three professions and is credited with several notable discoveries in chemistry. While researching this blog-post, I found the musical score (notation) for Borodin’s string-quartet version of the piece in the public-domain. According to this Wikipedia article, the piece (also called, “Nocturne”) was composed by Borodin for his wife’s twentieth anniversary gift.

During my research, I also found a short 2006 Disney animation called “The Little Match Girl.” The Disney animation features the Nocturne. Copyright issues prevented my thoughts of merely replacing the audio in the Disney version animation with mine. I began thinking about alternative video presentations and decided that re-animating would be unrealistic time-wise, given my current animation skills. I searched for another way to present this piece. Eventually I found a translation of the Hans Christian Andersen short-story on which the Disney animation was based. I used my go-to, Mac-only slideshow-creation app, FotoMagico to make this simple presentation that again provides video to accompany the music, rather than vice versa.

To assist your more focused listening to the piece, notice that the piece makes extensive use of the “canon.” A canon is a musical form/device where one part is played/sung and is followed by one or more parts, in turn, singing/playing the same part. Well-known canons are “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” and Pachebel’s Canon (another wedding favorite). Duets between each pair of the instruments (violin 1, violin 2, viola and cello) are featured throughout.

The strings sounds I recorded are made by the software instrument, “Synful Orchestra.”  I have been surprised by how well it renders solo strings considering Synful Orchestra Strings are likely the best in my toolbox.

I hope that enjoy and are enriched by my presentation.