The Quartet for Flute, Oboe, Viola, and Cello by Aleksandr Porfir'yevich Borodin: A discussion of the work

This document discusses a little known chamber music work by Aleksandr Porfir'yevich Borodin, the Quartet in D Major for flute, oboe, viola and cello. Though published in a limited run of five hundred copies by the Soviet State Publishing agency in 1949, the piece has never been more than a title in a list of flute pieces to Western European and American musicians. This dissertation aims to correct that state of affairs; it will, for all practical purposes, introduce the work to the community of flute players and scholars and bring before them an essentially unknown piece of flute music.;The author discusses Borodin's Quartet from both historical and analytical perspectives. The document begins by placing the piece historically in three respects: within the context of chamber music compositions of the time; within the context of flute chamber music repertory of the time; and, within the compositional output of the composer. The author also presents brief biographical information and an overview of Borodin's other early chamber music works, in order to establish the context for understanding the Quartet.;The final chapter presents the first extensive analysis of this piece and its models. Borodin borrowed music for three of the four movements from Haydn piano sonatas, yet no one has conducted a detailed analysis of the similarities and differences between the sources and the use that Borodin made of them. This dissertation discusses the original sonatas and changes that Borodin made in the transcription and recomposition process. The single original movement, the minuet/scherzo, is analyzed as well. The author also considers how the quartet's movements both exemplify and diverge from the composer's style as represented in other early chamber pieces. As a practical addendum, the dissertation concludes with an appendix offering a translation of the editors' footnotes to the Soviet-published score.