Imagine winning a Tony Award for a hit Broadway musical, except you have been dead for nearly 70 years and were never even a full-time composer. Your day job was pioneering organic chemistry, and you only wrote music on sick days and holidays.

This episode tells the astonishing story of Alexander Borodin, the 19th-century polymath who co-discovered foundational chemical reactions while simultaneously composing some of Russia's most beloved music. We trace his life from a legally erased birth to a posthumous Broadway triumph, exploring how dividing his attention may have fueled his genius rather than hindering it.

• His birth as the illegitimate son of a Georgian nobleman, legally registered as a serf belonging to his own father
• His chemistry breakthroughs, including the Hunsdiecker-Borodin reaction and his co-discovery of t ...