Schools : Science & Music ? Yes ! Let's talk Alexander Borodin ! Resources

Alexander Porfiryevich Borodin

credits: Drawing by Natalia Mikhaylenko

https://www.rbth.com/arts/

"Know more as a musician than a scientist, Alexander Borodin was a friend and colleague to many famous scientists of the 19th century. Sometimes those just outside the limelight have their stories to tell."

Eva Amsen

Although composer Alexander Borodin (1833-1887) is best known for writing one of the best Russian operas, Prince Igor, he was also a renowned scientist and chemist. 

In fact, many Russian composers were not only composers. Mussorgsky was a militarist. Rimsky-Korsakov was a sailor.

The son of a Georgian prince, Alexander Porfiryevich Borodin was a sickly child who went on to create a powerful legacy in two different fields. 

Alexander Borodin

https://en.wikipedia.org/

Born in St. Petersburg on this day in 1833, Borodin showed an early aptitude for science, languages, and music. 

While mastering German, French, and English, he began studying flute at age eight and later learned the violin and violoncello. 

By the age of 13 he’d already composed a piece for flute and piano, nevertheless, he considered music to be a hobby while his main focus was in the field of science.

Google Doodle:

Google Doodle Alexander Borodin’s 185th Birthday

https://www.google.com/doodles/

Today, 12 November Google celebrates the 185th birthday with an interactive Doodle. Borodin, the boy who grew up to become both a distinguished chemist and one of Russia’s greatest classical composers.

He was a Russian Romantic composer who was a doctor and chemist by profession and made important early contributions to the field of organic chemistry. 

Although he is better known today as a composer, during his lifetime, he regarded medicine and science as his primary occupations, only pursuing music and composition in his spare time or when he was ill. 

The Five

https://en.wikipedia.org/

• Borodin, the composer:

Alexander Borodin, a Russian chemist and composer, was born Nov. 12, 1833.  Most people, if they have heard of Borodin at all, know him as a composer of symphonic poems, such as The Steppes of Central  Asia, or as an opera composer and creator of the Polovtsian Dances from Prince Igor opera.

Musically, 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.

The group of five Russian composers: César Cui, Aleksandr Borodin, Mily Balakirev, Modest Mussorgsky, and Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov who in the 1860s banded together in an attempt to create a truly national school of Russian music, free of the stifling influence of Italian opera, German lieder, and other western European forms. 

Borodin is best known for his two symphonies - his third was unfinished, interrupted by his early death; his two string quartets, the tone poem and his opera Prince Igor, also unfinished – it was completed by Rimsky-Korsakov and Alexander Glazunov.

Music from Prince Igor and his string quartets was later adapted for the US musical Kismet (1953). .

With three Tony Awards (including Best Musical), a television version and an MGM smash film, Kismet is one of the most renowned musicals to grace the Great White Way. Kismet has proven a winner with audiences time and again, thanks to its exotic setting, appealing characters and wry sense of humor... not to mention a lush score that is adapted from the soaring melodies of Alexander Borodin.

Alexander Borodin

https://www.famousscientists.org/

Portrait of composer and chemist Aleksander Porfirievich Borodin

by Ilya Repin

https://commons.wikimedia.org/

• Borodin, the scientist:

In fact, by profession, Borodin was a medically-trained organic chemist, and a very good one.  He taught at the Imperial Medical-Surgical Academy in St. Petersburg.  

Modern organic chemists recognize him as the co-discoverer of the aldol reaction, which is used to build complex carbon compounds, and for his work in organic synthesis.  He was also instrumental is setting up the first medical school for women in St. Petersburg, where he himself taught for some years.

At 17, Borodin began his studies at St Petersburg’s Medico-Surgical Academy, delving into botany, zoology, anatomy, and crystallography. Soon specialized in organic chemistry, earning his doctorate in 1858. 

St. Petersburg. Imperial Academy of Medical and Surgical (Military Medical)

https://commons.wikimedia.org/

He went on to become a professor at his alma mater, conducting research on benzene derivatives and organic synthesis, and the discovery of the aldol reaction. 

He’s also remembered as a champion of women’s rights, equal opportunity. He was of the opinion that there should be equality of education and was convinced that women would make good doctors. 

Medicina Ars Nobilissima

https://en.wikipedia.org/

Having founded the Women’s Medical School in St. Petersburg, where he taught for many years. The project of which Borodin was most proud. 

On his burial casket there is a silver plate from his female students which reads: "To the Founder, Protector and Defender of the School of Medicine for Women."

Alexander Borodin

https://www.famousscientists.org/

Still, the music kept calling him. As a chemist, he is best known for his work in organic synthesis, including being among the first chemists to demonstrate nucleophilic substitution, as well as being the co-discoverer of the aldol reaction.

credits: The Knowledge Review

Education : 

"Music offers a bundle of advantages for the educational and overall development of students. Training in music helps students develop language and reasoning. Early musical training helps develop the areas of brain related to language and reasoning. Music can help develop the left side of our brain, and songs can help in imprinting information on our minds."

Music also has the potential to achieve social and psychological transformation of children and young people. Their sensibility will be accurate. 

We must never waste such an opportunity as teachers! Captivating the major interests of our students to Music.

Some teachers love Music and feel comfortable to speak about Music in school curricula.

So, there's Alexander Borodin to include into your school curriculum. 

Displaying the Doodle could be an interesting approach to understand the feelings of some of your students about classical music. 

I'm sure you will discover some gifted kids. You can guide them to continue to study Music in Higher Education.

And science? See? Some good students in science will discover that they can do both. Music and science.

 

Dr Frances H. Arnold Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2018

https://vcresearch.berkeley.edu/

Borodin has been a precursor on women and girls in science education. Wow! In the 19th century? 

Over the last years, the global community has made a  great effort to inspire and engage women and girls in science. But the gap is still a problem.

Girls do as well as boys in science, maths, STEM, at school but many more boys go on to further study science, technology, engineering and medicine.

Remember to include Nobel Prize Nobel in Chemistry 2018 with one half to Frances H. Arnold. 

Resources: Book

Alexander Borodin

Composer, Scientist, Educator

Williem Vijvers

via ABC The American Book Center

https://abc.nl/

This book will be valuable to musicologists and historians of science alike. It should appeal to a wider audience of music lovers and people interested in Russian history.

The author is a chemist and worked as a specialist in scientific and patent information. Additionally, he studied music and graduated in Russian studies. He published several articles in these fields.

Other resources:

Please visit my posts on Beethoven, Grieg, Debussy among others.

Alexander Borodin: A Composer Among Chemists

Alexander Borodin, composer and scientist

http://www.lateralmag.com/articles/

Some thoughts: 

All of your lessons plans must be thought to meet specific area and curricular requirements, but also enrich students experience. 

For example, start by choosing the subject areas such as Core Curriculum (Language, Science, Music, Digital Literacy) and of course a Media Art | Music cross-curricular project.

Music Art| Project in Vocational education: 

Based on the curricular strand to be focused on in conjunction with students needs and any other specific classroom requirements, the art form and a specially trained LTTA (Learning Trough the Arts) are selected. 

Invite LTTA artists to collaborate with you in partnership to develop customized arts-infused lesson plans.

G-Souto 

12.11.2018

update 12.11.2020
Copyright © 2020G-Souto'sBlog, gsouto-digitalteacher.blogspot.com®

Schools : Science & Music ? Yes, Alexander Borodin : resources by G-Souto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Schools : Music education : Let's play Beethoven !

Ludwig van Beethoven

portrait:  Joseph Karl Stieler, 1828

https://pt.wikipedia.org/

Ludwig van Beethoven, baptized December 17, 1770, Bonn, archbishopric of Cologne, probably born a day or two earlier, German composer, the predominant musical figure in the transitional period between the Classical and Romantic eras.

Widely regarded as the greatest composer who ever lived, Ludwig van Beethoven dominates a period of musical history as no one else before or since.

Google Doodle Beethoven's 245th Anniversary

https://www.google.com/doodles/

Oh! My God! Today, Google honours the 245th anniversary of Ludwig van Beethoven born (probably on this day, December 17,1770) with a Doodle that highlights his most recognizable compositions. I am kind of excited about seeing it. 

In fact Beethoven biography starts with his baptism. He was baptized on December 17^th 1770, in Bonn.

Ludwig van Beethoven is one of the most famous and influential composers of all time. He is best known for his nine symphonies, which have been described as the "cornerstones of Western civilisation".

• Google Doodle:

First let's talk about this wonderful Doodle! The Doodle went live on Google’s main search page starting on the evening of Dec. 16 and will stay up through Dec. 17, the date Beethoven was baptized in the year 1770. His exact birthday isn’t known, but is believed to be around that time.

Google Doodle Beethoven's 245th anniversary

https://www.google.com/doodles/

The Doodle is so exciting! So creative! Beethoven's Doodle is an interactive video. It's more of a puzzle than it is a simple picture. 

We can listen Beethoven's music and at the same time, we are tasked with arranging Beethoven’s sheet music in the correct order after he mixes up the pieces on his way to conduct a concert. 

Google Doodle Beethoven's 245th anniversary

https://www.google.com/doodles/

The puzzle focuses on the composer’s most widely-received works, such as Fifth Symphony, Für Elise, the Moonlight Serenade, the Ode to Joy Ninth Symphony. Each piece becomes harder to piece back together as the puzzle progresses.

Google Doodle Beethoven's 245th anniversary

https://www.google.com/doodles/

The Doodle group stuck with this idea over others because of its subtle educational aspect. I agree! Completely!

“You can actually see the music notes, so you can get the concept of written music,”

Jordan Thompson

Congratulations to artist Nate Swinehart and engineers Jonathan Shneier and Jordan Thompson. Divine this interactive video. Beethoven deserves it !

credits: Mark Tucker

www.marktucker.com

Even when we are the preeminent musical genius of our generation, not my case, however I studied Piano since my childhood, and I have a Master. 

I played Beethoven piano pieces as Für Elise or The Moonlight Serenade, not the Fifth or Ninth Symphonies (these master pieces are symphonic). But I played sonatas, a piano concerto among others. It's one of my favorite composers.

Watching the puzzle, I just step on it. I began with joy (my memories came to me) Beethoven’s trip to the symphony hall in today’s musical puzzle. And I was lucky. I completed the four puzzles very fast. My musical hear and the knowledge of the master pieces helped me a lot.

I am a 'gifted' person today. In my childhood, my parents gave me the wonderful chance to play the piano. I have a Master in Piano at the Conservatory of Music.

credits: on the picture

• Biography in few words:

"It’s unclear when Beethoven was actually born, but December 17th marks the 245th anniversary of his baptism. 

Today provided us a rare opportunity to construct a game in step with beautiful music, whose evocative moods, drama, lightness, and depth made conjuring visuals to match it rollickingly fun. Here’s to one of history’s greatest artists, and to hoping that, wherever you happen to be traveling this holiday, your life’s work isn’t eaten by a horse."

Google doodle team

Ludwig’s father, a middling singer in the Elector’s court and a man too often in his cups, pulled the precocious child out of school at the age of ten in hopes of earning some money on the shoulders of his talent (as a result, his handwriting was so bad that musicologists still struggle to authenticate his signature). 

He lost two siblings prematurely, had to assume full responsibility for his family as a teenager, fell madly for unrequited lovers twice, and, most famously, began losing his hearing at the peak of his career.

Ludwig van Beethoven

Lithograph after an 1819 portrait by Ferdinand Schimon, c. 1870

https://www.britannica.com/

Despite all of this, Beethoven’s music prevailed. As Mozart reputedly said, “one day, [that boy] will give the world something to talk about.” That he certainly did. 

Sure, he may have raised his voice a few times, but he could overwhelm his friends with excessive kindness and generosity just the same. And while his romances brought him more anguish than happiness, would we have Für Elise or Moonlight Sonata if they hadn’t?

By his 30's his hearing began to deteriorate, and by the last decade of his life he was almost totally deaf. In 1811 he gave up conducting and performing in public but continued to compose; many of his most admired works come from these last 15 years of his life.

He passed away surrounded by his closest friends on March 26^th 1827, just as a storm broke out, in Vienna.

Ludwig van Beethoven

portrait: Christian Horneman,1803

https://pt.wikipedia.org/

• Some useful links:

Ludwig van Beethoven's Biography
http://www.lvbeethoven.com/Bio/BiographyLudwig.html

Ludwig van Beethoven| Encyclopedia Britannica
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Ludwig-van-Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven| Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_van_Beethoven

Das Digitale Beethoven-Haus
http://www.beethoven-haus-bonn.de/sixcms/detail.php?template=portal_en

After the 360th anniversary of Bartolomeo Cristofori (the piano inventor), the 193rd anniversary of Clara Schumann (pianist, piano teacher and mentor); the 332nd anniversary of Antonio Vivaldi (virtuoso violinist, composer) the anniversary of Igor Stravinsky (modern composer), Claude Debussy (composer and pianist) or the 200th anniversary of Franz Liszt (composer, virtuoso pianist), Google celebrates today, Ludwig van Beethoven, considered one of the best composers that has ever lived. 

credits: Getty Images/Glow RM

Education:

"Music is the language of God!

Musicians are the closest to God as men can be. We hear His voice. We read His lips."

Copying Beethoven (film)

As a musician, I think that every child have the right to learn a musical instrument. 

Every child, from any background, should have a chance to play music if they so wish. And they all can. It’s a myth that music is difficult. Nothing is difficult if we love it.

Try taking a child out of class for 15 minutes nowadays for an individual music lesson, as we used to in the 70's 

They would miss some swotting for a test or wreck a target – and, anyway, what would the child play and how would they learn?

The holistic immersive approach of Music (classical or not) and the engagement of important and skilled musicians is central to achieving significant transformation, particularly to the lives of the most vulnerable children.

credits: Photofusion/UIG/Getty

What school could pay for instruments and one-to-one tuition? How could they ever build up an orchestra, for poor as well as rich? Yes, they can.

Gustavo Dudamel did it with El Sistema. The program offers instruction as many as four days a week to some 500 under-privileged kids in undeserved areas of the city, most of them Latinan or African American.

In Portugal the Orquestra Geração follows the El Sistema. The Orquestra Geração programme offers children from underprivileged suburbs of Portugal (different cities in the country), the opportunity to keep on practice music: instruments and music courses are available to them free of charge. It's a musical project for inclusion of the young Portuguese who live in underprivileged suburbs.

Ludwig van Beethoven, 1945. 

Library of Congress Prints & Photographs Division

Resources:

• The Doodle:

Start your lesson, if you are at school before festive season, asking your students to enter on Google’s main search page and let them try by themselves to help Beethoven's unfortunate journey to the symphony hall by arranging his masterpieces in time for the big crescendo (puzzle). If they are in a Music course, it will be easy. If not help the younger.

Even they are not playing an instrument, they will love to arrange music sheets by order. Ask them to pay attention to the tune.

• Beethoven for Children: Das Digitale Beethoven-Haus

On the website, you will find Hello Beethoven for Children (interactive activities) in five languages: German, English, French, Spanish, Turkish. 

Ten chapters (all interactive) cover different aspects of Beethoven's life. Don't miss this pedagogical resource.

Copying Beethoven
Agnieszka Holland, 2006

https://www.imdb.com/

• A biopic: Copying Beethoven

There's a wonderful film, Copying Beethoven that you can include into your lessons. It's a good digital resource and students will love it.

The film was directed by Agnieszka Holland and it's almost a love story about music or through music.

"The journey during the film is to learn about the music, but also to learn about the man... to come closer and closer to the music and to the man."

Agnieszka Holland

The film takes place in 1824, toward the end of Beethoven’s life. Directed by the Polish veteran Agnieszka Holland, the film tells the agonies of a man who lives very much alone in his head. 

"I will help you, I will stand where you can see me, I'll give the bite for you."

(Copying Beethoven)

Synopsis: 

Copying Beethoven looks as if it might be following the typical period film. Ed Harris (Beethoven) proves an ideal substitute for deaf, brooding composer, acting with a violent turbulence that sometimes floods the room. 

Diane Krueger plays Anna Holtz, a Viennese music student who through talent, ambition and happenstance finds herself summoned to transcribe Beethoven’s messy musical notations. 

Stone deaf, Beethoven initially rebuffs her services (you’re a woman, he all but shouts, as if her sex were a crime), but quickly relents. 

"I may be a woman but I am the best student!"

Time and life are running out, and he is too preoccupied with finishing his latest symphony, the Ninth Symphony (we can hear the Ode of Joy in the doodle video).

Copying Beethoven

Agnieszka Holland, 2006

https://www.imdb.com/

So together, in a darkly lighted apartment where rats scuttle underfoot amid eggshells and overflowing chamber pots, he composes and she copies. 

"I will help you, I will stand where you can see me, I'll give the bite for you."

(Copying Beethoven)

In time, the work and the notes join forces until one evening, with Beethoven conducting, the Ninth Symphony erupts into a dazzled world.

The presentation of the Ninth is heaven! On screen is the Kecskemet Symphony Orchestra of Hungary, but what we hear is a 1996 Decca recording of Bernard Haitink conducting the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam. 

"He changed the very notion of music, destroying rules, conventions [...] bombastic, brilliant, generous, unforgiving, yet kind hearted, Beethoven ruled over the cultural landscape of Europe in the first quarter of the 19th century."

Agnieszka Holland

To explore movies in the classroom, you will find different posts on my blog. Movies can be used to teach reading strategies for example. Films can offer teachers and students a nice motivating push to a different lesson, for developing different skills.

Films are interesting digital resources:

•  to teach music, literacy, arts, sciences, civics, values.

• for reinforcing skills, reading, writing, drawing, composing, for reinforcing or introducing the skill of inference.

"Movies present language in a way that is often more natural than that found in course-books, the fantastic visual context aids understanding and boosts listening, and students just simply love them."

Steve Louw

• Activities: Apply to the level(s) you are teaching. You're the master of your lessons.

Cross-curricular project: Music, Languages; Literature; Arts ; Multimedia

Target: 

• Primary to Secondary Education. 

• Vocational: #Music#Arts.

Other Resources: 

• Articles:

- Deus Ex Musica: Beethoven transformed music - but has veneration of him stifled his successors?

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/10/20/deus-ex-musica

- Beethoven's Famous 4 Notes: Truly Revolutionary Music (Fith Symphony)

https://www.npr.org/sections/deceptivecadence/2012/11/19/165495617/beethovens-famous-4-notes-truly-revolutionary-music

Interesting articles for Vocational Music schools (students).

Ludwig van Beethoven

illustration: Daniel Adel

http://www.newyorker.com/

Some thoughts:

Children and young people from all backgrounds should have the opportunity to learn a musical instrument at school, making music with class mates, learning to sing or to dance, having the opportunity to progress to the next level of excellence.

Music has the potential to achieve social and psychological transformation of children and young people. Their sensibility will be accurate. 

We must never waste such an opportunity as teachers! Captivating the major interests of our students to Music.

"High quality music education enables lifelong participation in, and enjoyment of, music, as well as underpinning excellence and professionalism for those who choose not to pursue a career in music."

Music, as you can read on several posts on this blog, is fundamental in Education of young people.

Note: 2020 is celebrating the 250th Birthday of Beethoven

"Don't only practice your art, but force your way into its secrets; art deserves that, for it and knowledge can raise man to the Divine."

Ludwig van Beethoven

G-Souto

17.12.2015

updated 17.12.2020
Copyright © 2015G-Souto'sBlog, gsouto-digitalteacher.blogspot.com®

Schools : Music education : Let's Play Beethoven ! by G-Souto is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.