1812 Overture

The 1812 Overture (full title: Festival Overture "The Year 1812" in E flat major, Op. 49; French: Ouverture solennelle 1812) is Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's orchestral tribute commemorating Russia's 1812 defense against Napoleon's advancing Grande Armée at the Battle of Borodino, during the devastating French invasion of Russia. Field Marshall Mikhail Kutuzov's defiant stand 75 miles west of Moscow greatly weakened the French army, saved Russia from probable defeat, and marked the major turning point of the Napoleonic Wars. The 1812 Overture is best known for its thunderous volley of cannon fire and ringing chimes, which evoke the hue and cry of the battlefield and the Russian people's subsequent military victory. (During the Battle of Borodino, the two sides fired an average estimated 15,000 rounds of cannon fire per hour, over the course of 15 hours.) When the 1812 Overture is performed indoors, orchestras may use computer generated cannon sounds or huge barrel drums. The composition has no historical connection with the US-UK War of 1812, but is often a staple at Fourth of July celebrations. Tchaikovsky's work is one of fewer than ten that use guns or cannon in their score, and is one of fewer still that call for the ringing of a carillon.

The Overture debuted in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow on August 20 1882, a church that was destroyed by Stalin in the 1930s.

Historical background

The Battle of Borodino

Main article: Battle of Borodino

On September 7 1812, 120 km (75 miles) west of Moscow at Borodino, Napoleon’s forces met those of General Kutuzov in the only concerted stand made by Russia against the seemingly invincible French army. The Battle of Borodino saw casualties estimated as high as 100,000 and produced victory for neither side. It did, however, break the back of the French invasion.

With resources depleted and supply lines overextended, Napoleon’s crippled forces moved into Moscow, which was surrendered without resistance. Expecting capitulation from the displaced Tsar Alexander I, the French instead found themselves in a barren and desolate city razed completely to the ground by the retreating Russian Army.

Deprived of winter quarters, Napoleon found it necessary to retreat. Beginning on October 19 and lasting well into December, the French army faced several overwhelming obstacles on its long retreat out of Russia: Famine, frigid temperatures, and Russian forces barring the way out of the country. Abandoned by Napoleon in December, the largest army ever assembled melted away to one-tenth its original size by the time it reached Poland.

Commission of the overture

In 1880 the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, commissioned by Tsar Alexander II to commemorate the French defeat, was nearing completion in Moscow; the 25th anniversary of the coronation of Alexander II would be at hand in 1881; and the 1882 Moscow Arts and Industry Exhibition was in the planning stage.

In the spring of 1880, Tchaikovsky's friend and mentor Nikolay Rubinstein suggested that a grand commemorative piece should be composed for use in related festivities. The work was commissioned by what we would call today the Red Cross. Tchaikovsky began work on the project on October 12 1880, and finished it six weeks later. Plans were for the piece to be performed in the square before the cathedral, with a brass band to reinforce the orchestra, the bells of the cathedral and all the others in downtown Moscow playing Zvons on cue, and live cannonfire in accompaniment, fired from an electric switch panel in order to achieve the precision demanded by the musical score in which each shot was specifically written.

Meanwhile, Tchaikovsky complained to his patron Nadezhda von Meck that he was "not a concocter of festival pieces," and that the Overture would be "showy and noisy, but [without] artistic merit, because I wrote it without warmth and without love," adding himself to the legion of artists who from time to time have castigated their own work. It is the work that would have made Tschaikovsky Estate exceptionally wealthy because it is one of the most performed and recorded works from his catalog.

No 1881 performance took place. The plan may have been too ambitious, but in any case Alexander II was assassinated in March of that year, deflating much of the reason behind the project. In 1882, at the Arts and Industry Exhibition, the Overture was performed indoors with conventional orchestration. The cathedral was completed in 1883.

In 1931 the cathedral, with golden domes up to 30 stories high and 65 tons of bells, was stripped and blown up. Reconstruction of the cathedral, on its original site, began in 1994 and was completed in December of 1999.

Instrumentation

The 1812 Overture is scored for an orchestra made up of piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, cor anglais, 2 clarinets in B flat, 2 bassoons, 4 horns in F, 2 cornets in B flat, 2 trumpets in E flat, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, triangle, tambourine, snare drum, cymbals, bass drum, carillon (sometimes played on tubular bells), cannon (sometimes either recorded cannons, or played on either a bass drum or tam-tam in indoor performances), strings, and an optional brass band. In some indoor performances, the optional brass band part must be played on an organ.

Musical structure

Sixteen cannon shots are written into the score of the Overture. Beginning with the plaintive hymn "God Preserve Thy People", which was the old Czarist Russian National Anthem, the piece moves through a mixture of pastoral and militant themes portraying the increasing distress of the Russian people at the hands of the invading French. At the turning point of the invasion—the Battle of Borodino—the score calls for five Russian cannon shots confronting a boastfully repetitive fragment of the Marseillaise. A descending string passage represents the subsequent attrition of the French forces, followed by victory bells and a triumphant repetition of "God Preserve Thy People" as Moscow burns to deny winter quarters to the French. A musical chase scene appears, out of which emerges the anthem "God Save the Tsar!," thundering with eleven more precisely scored shots.

Performance practice

Logistics of safety and precision in placement of the shots require either well-drilled military crews using modern cannon, or else the use of sixteen pieces of muzzle-loading artillery, since any reloading schemes to attain the sixteen shots or even a semblance of them in the two minute time span involved makes safety and precision impossible with 1800s artillery. Time lag alone precludes implementation of cues for the shots for 1812-era field pieces.

Did Tchaikovsky ever hear the piece as written?

Musicologists questioned across the last third of a century have given no indication that the composer ever heard the Overture performed in authentic accordance with the 1880 plan. It is reported that he asked permission to perform the piece as planned in Berlin, but was denied that permission. Performances he conducted on U.S. and European tours were apparently done with simulated or at best inexact shots, if with shots at all, a custom universal until recent years.

Antal Dorati and Erich Kunzel are the first conductors to have encouraged exact fidelity of the shots to the written score in live performances, beginning in New York and Connecticut as part of Dorati's recording and Kunzel in Cincinnati in 1967 with assistance from J. Paul Barnett, of South Bend, Indiana. Of these the Dorati is the better and more faithful performance which has been recorded for posteriory on Mercury Records. Dorati uses an actual Carillon called for in the score and they are rung about as close to a zvon then known. The art of Zvon ringing was almost lost due to the Russian Revolution and the atheistic beliefs of the communists. The Dorati recording also uses actual period French Cannon for the 1812 period which belonged to West Point US Military College.

Recording history

• A 1927 Cleveland recording contains dozens of bass drum "shots" at random in the final moments of the piece.

• A Royal Opera Orchestra recording of about the same time contains no shots at all. Various more recent recordings feature modern or antique artillery firing in approximation of the score, and other improvisations and horrible bell sounds from tubular chimes to fake bell sounds which do no ZVON ringing.

• Antal Dorati’s landmark 1954 Mercury Records recording with the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra (recorded in mono in 1954 and in stereo in 1958), partially recorded at West Point, and using the Yale University's Harkness Carillon (then a mere chime) in Hartford, Connecticut, uses a period French single muzzleloading cannon shot dubbed in 16 times as written, and was such an advancement in authenticity that on the first edition of the recording, one side played the Overture and the other side played a narrative by Deems Taylor about how the feat was accomplished. The stereophonic version was recorded on April 5, 1958 using the bells of the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Carillon,at the Riverside Church. On this Mercury Living Presence Stereo recording the spoken commentary was also given by Deems Taylor and was coupled with Tchaikovsky's "Capriccio Italien".

• Later recordings have been variously done by similar means. The Black Dyke Mills Brass Band have also recorded a brass band arrangement of the piece. This recording includes the cannon shots as originally written. In 1990, in a worldwide celebration of the 150th anniversary of Tchaikovsky’s birth, the Overture was recorded in the city of his youth by the St. Petersburg Philharmonic using 16 muzzleloading cannons fired live as written in the 1880 score. That recording was done within earshot of the composer’s grave.

Performance venues

• The Boston Pops Orchestra plays the Overture annually on Independence Day for "Pops Goes The Fourth." It is one of the best-attended July 4th celebrations in the country and it takes place on the Charles River Esplanade at the Hatch Shell. The performance is accompanied by real cannons from the Massachusetts National Guard and by fireworks over Boston Harbor/Charles River.
• The National Symphony Orchestra plays the Overture as part of the finale to the A Capitol Fourth concert on the Capitol lawn in Washington, D.C. each Independence Day. However, recent performances have featured only the climax of the overture, not the entire fifteen minute piece.
• The United States Army Band "Pershing's Own" performs the 1812 Overture at the National Sylvan Theater, Washington, DC, USA, every August. The performance is highlighted with real cannon of the 3rd United States Infantry Regiment (The Old Guard)] Presidential Salute Battery.
• Utah Symphony Orchestra's Deer Valley Music Festival in Park City, Utah: Every August the Overture is performed outdoors at the Deer Valley Resort's Amphitheater with real cannons.
• The 1812 Overture is played each January by the Sydney Symphony to conclude the popular Symphony in the Domain concert, with the bells of St Mary's Cathedral, Sydney tolling in the background. It is also played annually by the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra at the Santos Limited 'Symphony Under the Stars' concert.
• The 1812 Overture is played each year by the Royal Military College Band — at Duntroon in Canberra, Australia - complete with real artillery and fireworks.
• "1812 at the Fort", an outdoor performance of the 1812 Overture, is performed annually during summer at Fort Henry in Kingston, Ontario. The performance is the joint effort of the Kingston Symphony and the Fort Henry Guard, with the Fort Henry Guard firing a variety of rifles and artillery during the performance.
• The 1812 Overture is played annually at the conclusion of the outdoor Pops concert held at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah, usually held on the second to last Sunday before the 24th of July (Pioneer Day). The piece is followed immediately by fireworks.
• The 1812 Overture is played annually at the conclusion of the outdoor Honor America Days celebration mid-july in Rome, NY. The event is performed by the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra and held on the lawn of the original Fort Stanwix National Monument.
• The 1812 Overture is performed annually as the finale of the Oregon Symphony Waterfront Concert in August. The Oregon Symphony has traditionally hosted the Oregon National Guard whose cannon fire is conducted by a second conductor and remote operated traffic lights.

The overture referenced or used in other works

Tchaikovsky's 1812 is often alluded to in other artistic creations, especially where conflict is an important theme. Examples include:

• A fragment of 1812 appears in the score by Andre Previn for Every Good Boy Deserves Favour (1977), a play for actors and orchestra by Tom Stoppard. The play is set in a Russian mental hospital to which dissidents are consigned during the Soviet era. In this context the French themes such as "La Marsellaise" symbolize independence of spirit.
• In the film Dead Poets Society (1989) the patriotic cannon tune is whistled by a free-thinking teacher as he strolls the grounds of a tradition-bound school.
• For several years, the overture was used as the background score by the Australian Government in Army Reserve recruiting advertisements.

1812 has also been the subject of humour:

• Peter Schikele pokes fun at the incongruous association of 1812 with American patriotic celebrations in Overture 1712 for "really big orchestra." The piece, ostensibly written by P. D. Q. Bach in the colonial era, echoes Tchaikovsky gesture for gesture while basing every melody on "Yankee Doodle."
• It was mentioned in the comic strip Calvin & Hobbes; when Hobbes mentions the role of cannons in 1812's performance, Calvin exclaims, "And they play this in crowded music halls?! And I thought classical music was boring!"

• 1812 was also in the 2006 movie, V for Vendetta as the tune buildings were blown up to, and also was incorporated into the soundtrack of the film itself.

• 1812 was also poked fun at in the Frasier episode Dinner at Eight where Niles recalls Frasier's stubborn ignorance as a child by asking him; "Remember when you used to think the 1812 Overture was a great piece of classical music?" Frasier responds by wistfully wondering if he was "ever that young".

External links

• Article from 2003 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on how “1812” has become a piece of patriotic Americana
• Russian national anthem “God Save the Tsar” in Tchaikovsky’s music — contains several audio recordings of the 1812 Overture.
• 1812 Overture (measure 349 to end) sheet music