In the Steppes of Central Asia

One of the peculiarities of descriptive music is that the composer who wants to represent silence has to find a sound for it. In his orchestral sketch In the Steppes of Central Asia Borodin does it by having some of his first violins very quietly sustain high Es for minutes at a time. The clarinet tune starting on the same note seems to grow out of the silence, as though it were a natural product of the atmosphere. A horn repeats it and sinks back into silence. But then, with the entry of pizzicato cellos and violas, the atmosphere changes and the cor anglais introduces a different kind of theme, an exotically expressive melody with a long and sinuous line.

This is all the material Borodin needs to illuminate a scene described in the score as follows:

In the silence of the monotonous steppes of Central Asia is heard the unfamiliar sound of a peaceful Russian song. From the distance we hear the approach of horses and camels and the bizarre and melancholy notes of an oriental melody. A caravan approaches, escorted by Russian soldiers and continues safely on its long way through the immense desert. It disappears slowly. The notes of the Russian and Asiatic melodies join in a common harmony, which dies away as the caravan disappears in the distance.

The Russian song is the clarinet tune, of course; the distant tread of the horses and camles is represented by pizzicato cellos and violas; and the oriental melody is the cor anglais theme. Borodin does not develop his themes but merely repeats them in different keys and different instrumental colours. The structure is determined not by any conventional musical form but by the approach and passing of the exotic caravan and its escort of Russian soldiers, the climax being the full-orchestral version of the Russian song at the precisely calculated centre of the work. As the procession disappears into the distance the two themes are combined in a variety of ways until only the Russian song remains and, after that, silence…

This very Russian scene, set where east so vividly meets west, was one of a series of historical and national tableaux provided by a whole team of composer to celebrate Tsar Alexander II’s silver jubilee in 1880.