1812 Overture

The 1812 overture, complete with cannon fire, was performed at the 2005 Classical Spectacular.

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky wrote the Festival Overture "The Year 1812" in E♭ major, Op. 49 (French: Ouverture solennelle "L'Année 1812"; Russian: Торжественная увертюра 1812 года, Toržestvennaja uvertjura 1812 goda) to commemorate Russia's 1812 defense against Napoleon's advancing Grande Armée at the Battle of Borodino, during the devastating French invasion of Russia. The Overture debuted in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow on August 20, 1882 ( in the Gregorian or NS calendar; the date in the Julian or OS calendar was 8 August). The overture is best known for its climactic volley of cannon fire and ringing chimes. While this piece has no historical connection with United States history, it is often a staple at Fourth of July celebrations.

Contents

Instrumentation

The 1812 Overture is scored for an orchestra comprising one piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, one cor anglais, two clarinets in B♭, two bassoons, four horns in F, two cornets in B♭, two trumpets in E♭, three trombones, one tuba, timpani, one triangle, one tambourine, one snare drum, cymbals, one bass drum, one carillon (sometimes played on tubular bells or chimes), one cannon, strings, and an optional brass band. In the sections in which cannon shots are played, the actual cannons are sometimes replaced by recorded cannons or played on a piece of staging, usually with a large wooden mallet or sledge hammer. The bass drum and tam-tam are also regularly used in indoor performances. In some indoor performances, the optional part for a brass band may be played on an organ.

Musical structure

Sixteen cannon shots are written into the score of the Overture. Beginning with the plaintive Russian Orthodox hymn "God Preserve Thy People" played by eight cellos and four violas, 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. This passage includes a Russian folk dance, "At the Gate, at my Gate." [1] 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 La Marseillaise. A descending string passage represents the subsequent retreat 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.

Although God Save the Tsar! was the Russian National Anthem in Tchaikovsky's time, it was not the anthem in 1812. There was no official Russian anthem until 1815, from which time until 1833 the anthem was "Molitva russkikh", Prayer of the Russians, sung to the tune of God Save the King.

There are several recordings of the overture in a transcription by Russian-American conductor Igor Buketoff [2] with the following changes and additions:

Composition

Historical background: Napoleon's invasion of Russia

Main article: French invasion of Russia

On September 7, 1812, 120 km (75 miles) west of Moscow at Borodino, Napoleon's forces met those of General Mikhail Illarionovich 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 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: famine, frigid temperatures, and Russian forces barring the way out of the country. Abandoned by Napoleon in December, the largest army ever assembled had been reduced 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. Tchaikovsky's friend and mentor Nikolay Rubinstein suggested that a grand commemorative piece 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, finishing it six weeks later.

The piece was planned 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" (pealing bells) 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. This performance did not actually take place. The plan may have been too ambitious. Regardless, the assassination of Alexander II that March deflated 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.

Meanwhile, Tchaikovsky complained to his patron Nadezhda von Meck that he was "not a concocter of festival pieces", and that the Overture would be "very loud 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 the Tchaikovsky estate exceptionally wealthy, as it is one of the most performed and recorded works from his catalog.

Performance practice

Logistics

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 it. 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 Doráti 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.[3] Of recorded versions of these performances, Dorati's recording for Mercury Records is the more faithful performance. Dorati uses an actual carillon called for in the score and the bells are rung about as close to a zvon then known. The art of zvon ringing was almost lost due to the Russian Revolution. The Dorati recording also uses actual period French cannon for the 1812 period, which belonged to the United States Military Academy at West Point.

Recording history

Media

References

  1. ↑ See: http://www.utexas.edu/courses/russian/rus330-sp07/lecs/lec21.pdf
  2. ↑ See: http://web.singnet.com.sg/~lionelc/nov97.htm
  3. ↑ "Tchaikovsky: 1812 Overture: The New Recording". Telarc International.

External links