String Quartet No. 2 (Borodin)

Some scholars, such as Borodin's biographer Serge Dianin, suggest that the quartet was a 20th anniversary gift and that it has a program evoking the couple's first meeting in Heidelberg.

Borodin wrote the string quartet quickly in 1881 while staying at the estate of his friend, the minor composer Nikolai Lodyzhensky, which was located in Zhitovo, southeast of Moscow.

The principal theme of the exposition begins in measure one, with a cello singing a lyrical melody in high register.

All thematic material is lyrical; contrasts are achieved via contrapuntal writing (as in the middle section of the subordinate theme, beginning in measure 57, and especially in beginning in measure 65), or color contrasts (such as changes of keys–beginning of the development, and particularly the non-traditional key of the subordinate theme in the recapitulation).

The principal theme of this movement (descending scale-based figure of the first violin, accompanied by a falling motive in a viola) reminds one of Mendelssohn's scherzi.

The tuneful subordinate theme of this movement was freely used in the musical Kismet as the song "Baubles, Bangles, & Beads".

An agitated middle section, beginning in F major, followed by a series of modulations and lasting from bars 47–110 of the movement, interrupts this theme's otherwise peaceful mood.

Written in a conventional sonata form, it opens with an introduction, which introduces the principal theme, broken into two elements: a dialogue between two violins, answered by a viola and cello.

Many parts of the piece were adapted into the 1953 Broadway musical Kismet The third movement serves as the score to Disney's 2006 short The Little Matchgirl.