Alexander Borodin

Alexander Porfiryevich Borodin was a Russian chemist and Romantic musical composer of Georgian ancestry. He was one of the prominent 19th-century composers known as "The Mighty Handful", a group dedicated to producing a uniquely Russian kind of classical music, rather than imitating earlier Western European models. Borodin is known best for his symphonies, his two string quartets, the symphonic poem In the Steppes of Central Asia and his opera Prince Igor. Music from the In the Steppes of Central Asia, his Symphony No. 2, Prince Igor and his string quartets was later adapted for the US musical Kismet.