Editing Prince Igor (section)

===Posthumous completion and orchestration: 1887–1888===
Borodin died suddenly in 1887, leaving ''Prince Igor'' incomplete. Rimsky-Korsakov and Stasov went to Borodin's home, collected his scores, and brought them to Rimsky-Korsakov's house.

{{blockquote|Glazunov and I together sorted all the manuscripts ... In the first place there was the unfinished ''Prince Igor''. Certain numbers of the opera, such as the first chorus, the dance of the Polovtsy, Yaroslavna's Lament, the recitative and song of Vladimir Galitsky, Konchak's aria, the arias of Konchakovna and Prince Vladimir Igorevich, as well as the closing chorus, had been finished and orchestrated by the composer. Much else existed in the form of finished piano sketches; all the rest was in fragmentary rough draft only, while a good deal simply did not exist. For Acts&nbsp;II and III (in the camp of the Polovtsy) there was no adequate libretto – no scenario, even – there were only scattered verses and musical sketches, or finished numbers that showed no connection between them. The synopsis of these acts I knew full well from talks and discussions with Borodin, although in his projects he had been changing a great deal, striking things out and putting them back again. The smallest bulk of composed music proved to be in Act&nbsp;III. Glazunov and I settled the matter as follows between us: He was to fill in all the gaps in Act&nbsp;III and write down from memory the Overture played so often by the composer, while I was to orchestrate, finish composing, and systematize all the rest that had been left unfinished and unorchestrated by Borodin.<ref>Rimsky-Korsakov (1923: p.&nbsp;283)</ref>|Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, ''Chronicle of My Musical Life'', 1909}}

The often-repeated account that Glazunov reconstructed and orchestrated the overture from memory after hearing the composer play it at the piano is true only in part.  The following statement by Glazunov himself clarifies the matter:

{{blockquote|The overture was composed by me roughly according to Borodin's plan. I took the themes from the corresponding numbers of the opera and was fortunate enough to find the canonic ending of the second subject among the composer's sketches. I slightly altered the fanfares for the overture ... The bass progression in the middle I found noted down on a scrap of paper, and the combination of the two themes (Igor's aria and a phrase from the trio) was also discovered among the composer's papers. A few bars at the very end were composed by me.<ref>Abraham (1939: p.&nbsp;165)</ref>|Alexander Glazunov, memoir, 1891, published in the ''Russkaya muzikalnaya gazeta'', 1896}}