The Polovtsian Dances are perhaps the best known selections from Alexander Borodin

Alexander Borodin

Alexander Porfiryevich Borodin was a Russian Romantic composer and chemist of Georgian–Russian parentage. He was a member of the group of composers called The Five , who were dedicated to producing a specifically Russian kind of art music...

's opera Prince Igor

Prince Igor

Prince Igor is an opera in four acts with a prologue. It was composed by Alexander Borodin. The composer adapted the libretto from the East Slavic epic The Lay of Igor's Host, which recounts the campaign of Russian prince Igor Svyatoslavich against the invading Polovtsian tribes in 1185...

(1890). They are often played as a stand-alone concert piece. Borodin was the original composer, but the opera was left unfinished at his death and was subsequently completed by Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov

Nikolai Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov was a Russian composer, and a member of the group of composers known as The Five.The Five, also known as The Mighty Handful or The Mighty Coterie, refers to a circle of composers who met in Saint Petersburg, Russia, in the years 1856–1870: Mily Balakirev , César...

 and Alexander Glazunov

Alexander Glazunov

Alexander Konstantinovich Glazunov was a Russian composer of the late Russian Romantic period, music teacher and conductor...

. In the opera the dances are performed with chorus

Choir

A choir, chorale or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform.A body of singers who perform together as a group is called a choir or chorus...

, but concert performances often omit the choral parts. The dances do not include the "Polovtsian March," which opens Act III (No. 18), but the overture, dances, and march from the opera have been performed together to form a suite

Suite

In music, a suite is an ordered set of instrumental or orchestral pieces normally performed in a concert setting rather than as accompaniment; they may be extracts from an opera, ballet , or incidental music to a play or film , or they may be entirely original movements .In the...

 from Prince Igor. In the opera Prince Igor, the dances occur in Act II (in the original edition). A typical performance lasts between 11 and 14 minutes.

Dances

The first dance, which uses no chorus and is sometimes omitted in concerts, is No. 8, entitled "Dance of the Polovtsian Maidens" ["Пляска половецких девушек"]: presto, 6/8, F major

F major

F major is a musical major scale based on F, consisting of the pitches F, G, A, B, C, D, and E. Its key signature has one flat . It is by far the oldest key signature with an accidental, predating the others by hundreds of years...

; it is placed directly after the "Chorus of the Polovtsian Maidens," which opens the act and is followed by "Konchakovna's Cavatina". The dances proper appear at the end of the Act as an uninterrupted single number in several contrasting sections listed as follows (basic themes are indicated with letters in brackets and notated in the accompanying illustration)

• No. 17, "Polovtsian Dance with Chorus" ["Половецкая пляска с хором"]
  • [a] Introduction: Andantino, 4/4, A Major
  • [b] Gliding Dance of the Maidens [Пляска девушек плавная]: Andantino, 4/4, A Major
  • [c + a] Wild Dance of the Men [Пляска мужчин дикая]: Allegro vivo, 4/4, F Major
  • [d] General Dance [Общая пляска]: Allegro, 3/4, D Major
  • [e] Dance of the Boys [Пляска мальчиков] and 2nd Dance of the Men [Пляска мужчин]: Presto, 6/8, D Minor
  • [b’ + e’] Gliding Dance of the Maidens (reprise, soon combined with the faster dancing of the boys): Moderato alla breve, 2/2, A Major
  • [e’’] Dance of the Boys and 2nd Dance of the Men (reprise): Presto, 6/8, D Minor
  • [c’ + a’’] General Dance: Allegro con spirito, 4/4, A Major

As an orchestral showpiece by an important nineteenth-century Russian composer, notable instrumental solos include the clarinet

Clarinet

The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...

 (in No. 8 and the Men's Dance [c]) and the oboe

Oboe

The oboe is a double reed musical instrument of the woodwind family. In English, prior to 1770, the instrument was called "hautbois" , "hoboy", or "French hoboy". The spelling "oboe" was adopted into English ca...

 and English horn (in the Women's Dance [b]).

Translation

The text of the first stanza of this particular section in the opera is given below.

Cyrillic	English Translation
Улетай на крыльях ветра ты в край родной, родная песня наша, туда, где мы тебя свободно пели, где было так привольно нам с тобою. Там, под знойным небом негой воздух полон, там под говор моря дремлют горы в облаках. Там так ярко солнце светит, Родные горы светом заливая, В долинах пышно розы расцветают, И соловьи поют в лесах зелёных; И сладкий виноград растёт. Там тебе привольней, песня… Ты туда и улетай!	Fly away on wings of wind To native lands, our native song, To there, where we sang you freely, Where we were so carefree with you. There, under sultry skies, With bliss the air is full, There, to the whisper of the sea, mountains doze in the clouds. There, the sun shines so brightly, Bathing [our] native mountains in color. In the meadows, roses bloom luxuriously, And nightingales sing in the green forests; And sweet grape grows. There is more carefree for you, song… And so fly away there!