Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture officially lists a battery of cannons in its orchestra
Alongside flutes, horns and violins, the score of the 1812 Overture calls for artillery. Tchaikovsky wrote it in about six weeks to mark Russia's defeat of Napoleon's invasion, and its cannon-and-bells finale has since become a fixture of American Fourth of July fireworks, a strange fate for a Russian patriotic piece.
Tchaikovsky composed the Year 1812 Solemn Overture, Op. 49, in 1880. Its premiere, conducted by Ippolit Al'tani, took place in a tent in Moscow in August 1882, beside the unfinished Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, itself a memorial to the same war. The piece runs about 15 minutes and became one of his most popular works, ranking with his ballet scores such as The Nutcracker and Swan Lake.
The orchestra is a standard one with some spectacular extras. An open-ended brass band, made up of any additional brass available, joins only for the finale; indoors an organ sometimes takes its place. The percussion includes a carillon, often replaced by tubular bells or recordings, and the artillery line has been realised with howitzers, tanks, fireworks, recorded blasts or a sledgehammer on the stage. Conductors have also reshaped the opening: Herbert von Karajan's 1966 recording gave the first 36 bars to voices singing an Orthodox chant, and Igor Buketoff, son of a Russian Orthodox priest, went further two years later by adding a children's chorus and bringing the choir back for the tsarist anthem.
The history behind it is dramatic. On 7 September 1812 Napoleon's army met General Mikhail Kutuzov's forces at Borodino, about 120 kilometres west of Moscow, in a clash with estimated casualties of up to 100,000. The French held the field, but the victory proved hollow. They entered Moscow on 14 September expecting Tsar Alexander I to surrender, found the city deserted, and within 48 hours three-quarters of it had burned.
Without winter supplies, Napoleon began retreating on 19 October. Hunger, typhus, freezing cold, Cossack raids and Russian troops blocking the way ravaged the army, which Napoleon abandoned in November; barely a tenth reached Poland. Tolstoy's War and Peace, published in full in 1869, revived memories of that resistance and prompted new monuments, paintings and music, including Tchaikovsky's overture.
Source: 1812 Overture
