From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The 1812 Overture (full title: Festival Overture "The Year 1812", op. 49; French: Ouverture solennelle 1812) is an orchestral work by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky commemorating the unsuccessful French invasion into Russia, and the subsequent withdrawal that devastated Napoleon's Grande Armée, an event that marked 1812 as the major turning point of the Napoleonic Wars. The work is best known for the sequence of cannon fire, which is sometimes performed, especially at outside festivals, using one or more real cannons. When performed indoors, orchestras may use computer generated cannon sounds or huge barrel drums. Although the composition has no historical connection with the US-UK War of 1812, it is often performed in the US alongside other patriotic music; it is a staple at Fourth of July celebrations.

The overture debuted in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow on August 20, 1882.

Contents 1 Historical background 1.1 The Battle of Borodino 2 Commission of the overture 3 Musical structure 4 Did Tchaikovsky ever hear the piece as written? 5 Recording history 6 Appearances in popular culture 6.1 Movies 6.2 Television 6.3 Video games 6.4 Other 7 Performance venues 8 References 9 External links

Main article: Battle of Borodino

On September 7, 1812, 75 miles west of Moscow at Borodino, Napoleon’s forces met those of General Kotuzov in the only concerted stand made by Russia against the seemingly invincible French army. The Battle of Borodino yielded casualties estimated as high as 100,000, and produced victory for neither side. Yet the battle did 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 czar, the French instead met rejection of dialogue and destruction of the city by arson.

Deprived of winter quarters, Napoleon found it necessary to retreat. Beginning October 19 and continuing across the winter, the French army faced famine, legendary cold, and frequent guerilla raids in its attempt to reach home, and arrived there with only about a third of the original force having survived the campaign.

In 1880 the Cathedral of Christ the Redeemer, commissioned by Czar Alexander I 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 planning stages.

In the spring of 1880, friend and mentor Nicholas Rubenstein suggested to Peter Illych Tchaikovsky that a grand commemorative piece should be composed for use in related festivities. 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 cathedral bells and all others in downtown Moscow pealing 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 Nadia 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.

No 1881 performance took place. The plan may have been too ambitious, but in whatever case, Czar 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 out and blown up. Reconstruction of the cathedral, on its original site, began in 1995.

Sixteen cannon shots are written into the score of the Overture. Beginning with the plaintive hymn "God Preserve Thy People," 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 Czar," thundering with eleven more precisely scored shots. Logistics of safety and precision in placement of the shots—now as well as in 1880—require 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 would yield neither safety nor precision. Time lag alone precludes implementation of cues for the shots.

Musicologists questioned across the last third of a century have given no indication that the composer ever heard the Overture done in authentic accordance with the 1880 plan. It is reported that he asked permission to do the piece as planned in Berlin, but was denied that permission. Performances he did 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. Tchaikovsky died in 1893.

Erich Kunzel is the first conductor to have encouraged exact fidelity of the shots to the written score in live performances, beginning in Cincinnati in 1967 with assistance from J. Paul Barnett, of South Bend, Indiana.

The 1812 Overture has been recorded many times, usually with little or no reference to the concussive line written into the original score. 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. Antal Dorati’s landmark 1952 Minneapolis recording uses a 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 about how the feat was accomplished. Later recordings have been variously done by all those means. 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 Leningrad Philharmonic using 16 muzzleloading cannons fired live as written in the 1880 score. That recording was done within earshot of the composer’s grave, using the special services of South Bend Replicas, Inc., J. Paul Barnett, President.

(These appearances mainly refer to the part of the composition in which cannons can be heard.)

• The piece is used in The Beatles' second feature film, Help! (1965).
• The film The Music Lovers (1970) tells the story of Tchaikovsky's life and features the 1812 Overture.
• The piece is heard throughout "The Bad News Bears in Breaking Training" (1977).
• The overture is used in the ending scenes of Caddyshack and Airplane! (both 1980).
• The piece played a critical role in disguising a group of murders at the start of the film Gorky Park (1983).
• In Dead Poets Society (1989), Robin Williams' character (John Keating) whistles the overture.
• The movie Blown Away (1994) features the 1812 Overture.
• The movie Down with Love (2003) features it in a disaster date scene.
• The overture is prominently featured in the 2006 film V for Vendetta. The piece is used as the character V's signature performance, and is played on the street loudspeakers when V destroys the Old Bailey and is subsequently banned by Chancellor Sutler (it is also heard during the destruction of the Palace of Westminster). The cannon blasts are replaced by the destruction of the building and accompanying fireworks. You can also hear the beginning of the overture in other parts of the movie as well, such as in the score accompanying the Warner Bros. logo and during V's television broadcast.

• The overture was featured twice on The Simpsons. In "Bart the Daredevil", it is played by the second-grade school orchestra (complete with cannon fire). In "Lisa the Simpson", it is played during a Fox show about buildings collapsing.
• The overture made a notable appearance in the fourth season of the scifi show Farscape, where John Crichton (Ben Browder) taught the tune to a small maintenance robot DRD he named "1812" and painted blue, white and red.
• On an episode of Frasier (season one, episode three, "Dinner at Eight"), Frasier asks Niles, "Remember when you used to think that the 1812 Overture was a great piece of classical music?" Niles slowly shakes his head, and replies, "Was I ever that young?"
• In all of the "Red" episodes of 2 Stupid Dogs, "Red" "la-la's" it on the way to "Grandma's house".
• The closing music in the DangerMouse episode "Play It Again Wulfgang".
• In a 1960s commercial for Quaker Puffed Wheat Cereal, with lyrics that touted "It is the cereal that's shot from guns."
• Was used during the opening montage of the 2006 special AFI's 100 Years... 100 Cheers on CBS.
• In the 1980s and 1990s, the Australian Army Reserve used it in their television advertising.
• Featured in Tiny Toon Adventures during an episode where Babs and Buster Bunny conduct a concert version of the 1812 overture. The gag is that every time the cannons fire, Plucky Duck is shot with one no matter how hard he tries to avoid them.
• Featured in an episode of Teacher's Pet.
• Used during 1st season of Mythbusters to test the myth of "The Mad Trombonist".
• Part of this music played in a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, Hide and Q, in scenes involving a group of aliens in 19th century French military uniform.
• The Overture is sometimes used on Fox during trailers for upcoming episodes or films.
• The cannon fire of the Overture is heard consistently during the Super Bowl, especially the half-time shows.
• The finale was featured in an E*TRADE commercial.
• It was used at the end of a NOVA episode about lightning.

• In the high score screen of the computer game Project-X.
• Used as the introduction music of a computer game named Wizkid. In the introduction the main character of the game (Wizkid) is conducting an orchestra (that is not visible) and a pair of cannons (that are visible). When the final chord of the tune is hit, the head of the Wizkid explodes and red bubbles from the head flow in all directions.
• Appears in the computer game Fiendish Freddy's Big Top O'Fun during a cannon stage.
• Used extensively in the computer game Risk II by Microprose and also in the computer game Hearts of Iron by Paradox.
• Themes from the piece are used for the background music in the "Waterloo World" level of the Tim Schafer game Psychonauts where the player enters the mind of Fred Bonaparte, a direct descedent of Napoleon, in order to prevent him from going insane.
• In the arcade game Battlezone, it can be heard when the player gets a high score and is prompted to enter his/her initials.
• A Solomon Short quotation, "The only winner in the War of 1812 was Tchaikovsky", is mentioned in Call Of Duty 2 Continue screen.
• It is played upon successful completion of the Apple II game, "Volition" by the Psychological Research Laboratories.

• The New England Patriots have chosen playing either the 1812 Overture or a U2 song after a touchdown scored by the team.^[1]
• A tribute to this piece is heard in the overture to Rush's 2112.
• On Queen guitarist Brian May's solo concert in Brixton Academy, London, 15th June 1983, a part of the drum solo of the song Resurrection featured the drummer, Cozy Powell, drumming to the 1812 Overture. This is because the drum solo is part of a much longer drum solo by Cozy Powell, from the 1979 song "Over The Top", from the album by the same name, by Cozy Powell.
• It has been used as the finale of the annual fireworks display jointly presented by Detroit, Michigan and Windsor, Ontario.
• The overture's finale is played at the start of the fourth quarter of every Notre Dame home football game to honor the head coach and to rally the team and fans.
• It is used in part of a guitar solo during Cream's BBC Sessions version of the song "I'm So Glad".
• In an episode of the comic strip Calvin & Hobbes, Calvin and his imaginary tiger friend Hobbes finish listening to the 1812 Overture. When Calvin tells Hobbes that he likes the percussion part, Hobbes tells Calvin about the use of cannons during the finale. Calvin exclaims, "And they perform this in crowded concert halls?? Gee, I thought classical music was boring!"
• An arrangement of the tune was used in recruitment advertising for the Australian Army in the 1990s.

• 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.
• National Sylvan Theater, Washington, DC, USA, every August the Overture is performed with real cannon
• 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 annually by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra at their Symphony in the Domain concert, and is also played annually by the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra at the Santos Limited 'Symphony under the stars' concert.

• 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[[zh:181ɗ