Musical Engineers and Scientists: The Russian Five

As the eyes of the world shift from Russia and Sochi following the 2014 Winter Olympics, it might be neat to focus on a sorely neglected topic here in the West: Russian music. Most mentions of Russian composers are buried in music textbooks and stand out due to their unpronounceable names and tales of extreme poverty and alcoholism (sounds a bit like your first frat party, doesn't it?). But the influence of many Russians - including The Five, a circle of late-19th-century musicians who helped define Russian nationalism - is still evident today. This group is particularly interesting in that the backgrounds of all five men contain significant ties to science, mathematics, and engineering.

The Five: Balakirev, Borodin, Cui, Mussorgsky, and Rimsky-Korsakov

Alexander Borodin is a prime example. He attended the Medical-Surgical Academy in St. Petersburg and followed his education with several years of advanced study in chemistry. In 1862, he received a professorship in chemistry at the Academy and spent his days lecturing, conducting research, and as a practicing physician. His research, including nucleophilic displacement and other reactions of aldehydes, was influential. He independently discovered the Aldol reaction in 1872 and is listed as a co-creator. The Soviet Union went so far as to promote the 1939 Hunsdiecker reaction as the "Borodin reaction," claiming their long-deceased denizen did more significant work toward the discovery than the Hunsdieckers did.

Borodin's aldol reaction and bust.

Borodin treated music as more of a serious hobby, but some of his works are still performed today. His Slavic opera Prince Igor and the similarly exotic In the Steppes of Central Asia are regarded as cornerstones of Russian nationalist music. The popular 1953 song "Stranger in Paradise" was adapted from a Borodin melody heard in Prince Igor.

Cesar Cui, another of The Five, was born in present-day Lithuania to French and Russian parents. He attended the Military Engineering-Technical University in St. Petersburg for secondary and advanced studies and devoted his professional life to the study of fortifications after graduating in 1857. Cui became an expert on the subject: he published numerous books and papers on military architecture and served as fortifications adviser to the Imperial family. After a frontline assignment in the Russo-Turkish War, he secured a professorship in 1880 and became a general in 1906. Cui's music is less-performed than that of other members of The Five, and he is best remembered as an influential music critic, producing nearly 800 articles over the course of his lifetime.

Other members of The Five had similar backgrounds, but ultimately attempted music as a profession, with varying degrees of success:

-Modest Mussorgsky attended Cadet School to facilitate a military career but wound up working most of his life as a civil servant in various offices. He's best known for his highly original pieces Pictures at an Exhibition and St. John's Eve on Bald Mountain (usually known as Night on Bald Mountain). Mussorgsky's professional and musical careers were both cut short by severe alcoholism, which ultimately killed him in 1881 at the age of 42. His final portrait painted days before his death, shown here, is often cited as a classic depiction of the ravages of alcoholism.

-Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov studied mathematics and navigational sciences in St. Petersburg before ultimately joining the Russian navy. He was soon composing full-time, however, and became one of the most important Russian composers in history. His works, including Scheherazade, musical treatises, and "corrected" versions of Mussorgsky's pieces, are frequently encountered today. (The closing number from Disney's Fantasia, in fact, is a hacked up version of Rimsky-Korsakov's edition of Mussorgsky's Bald Mountain.)

-Mily Balakirev, often thought of as the leader of The Five, studied mathematics at university but immediately focused on music upon graduating. He made his (meager) living as a piano and composition teacher and burned out relatively early, breaking with The Five and suffering several nervous breakdowns with periods of acute depression.

It's difficult to determine whether The Five's common roots in math and science were due to their shared musicality or simply the state of Russian education at the time. Interestingly, their works don't show a particularly mathematical flavor as do those of contemporary pieces by Brahms, for example. It's since been proven that there's a concrete link between musicality and performance in math and science, so maybe the music came first?

Image credits: Naxos | John Wiley and Sons | Lafayette College