Cannons Included in Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture
The Backstory
1812 Overture in E-flat major, Op. 49
I'm Tchaikovsky, and this is the backstory of my 1812 Overture, a piece I wrote in the autumn of 1880. You'll learn how a request for a festival piece, one I accepted with little enthusiasm, still turned into music that is loud, vivid and hard to forget. If you'd like to learn how to recognize my pieces and those of my fellow composers when they play, this site can teach you, so come and try the Trainer whenever you're ready.
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A Letter from the Exhibition Committee
The whole thing started in 1880, when Nikolay Rubinstein became the new head of the music section of a big exhibition in Moscow. He wanted a grand piece for the occasion, and naturally he looked at me. My publisher Jurgenson passed the request along in the spring, a bit like a waiter handing over a menu. I didn't realize yet how much of my autumn that menu would swallow.Pick Any Occasion You Like
The menu had three items: an overture to open the exhibition, an overture for the silver jubilee of Alexander II, or a cantata for the consecration of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour. People often tell the story as if the piece was written for the cathedral, but the truth is less tidy. Several occasions were on the table, and in the end the overture was not played at the cathedral at all. So whenever someone tells you it was written for one particular ceremony, you can smile politely and keep your doubts.The Polite but Firm Second Request
In September 1880 Rubinstein asked me personally, and this time the request was much harder to wave away. He said I could write in any form I liked, as long as it ran somewhere between fifteen and twenty-five minutes. That is a generous brief, and yet I did not feel generous in return. I said yes anyway, because friends and deadlines have a way of winning such arguments.A Composer Who Would Rather Be Elsewhere
I should be honest with you: I was not in a festive mood. I wrote to my patron Nadezhda von Meck that nothing felt more foreign to me than composing for the sake of festivities. I told her the overture would be very loud and noisy, and that I wrote it without warm and loving feelings. Today it is one of my most played pieces, which tells you something about how little a composer knows about his own luck.The Friend Who Kept the Lights On
It helps to remember what my life looked like then. I had married Antonina Miliukova in 1877, and the marriage fell apart after only about two and a half months. From that same year Madame von Meck supported me, and that freedom let me concentrate on composing instead of worrying about money. So even a piece I wasn't fond of was written by a man who finally had the peace to finish it.Napoleon Comes to Call
The subject was Russia's defence against Napoleon's invasion in 1812, which is why the Russian title is simply "1812 год", or "The Year 1812". You will also see it called the Solemn Overture or the Festival Overture, depending on who is printing the program. I worked on it between September and November 1880, and the finished score carries the date of 7/19 November. That is a short stretch of time for something so large, but I knew exactly what the occasion wanted.History, Slightly Rearranged
If you hope to learn exactly what happened in 1812 from this music, I have to disappoint you. The tune "God Save the Tsar!" that crowns the finale did not exist yet in 1812, and the first official Russian anthem dates from 1815. I was telling a story about a nation's spirit rather than keeping a careful diary. Think of it as a painting of a battle, not a photograph of one.The Great Cannon Misunderstanding
Many people believe I wrote real cannon fire into the score, but I did not. What I wrote was a part for a "Bombardone", which was a large suspended drum. I did ask for large bells, all of the same pitch, and I added an optional brass band off stage to make the ending even grander. Real guns came later, as a tradition that conductors and sound engineers added without asking me.A Tent Instead of a Cathedral
My overture was first played on 8/20 August 1882 in Moscow, at a concert of the All-Russian Arts and Industrial Exhibition, with Ippolit Altani conducting. The audience sat in a tent near the unfinished cathedral, which was not completed until 1883. Two smaller performances had already happened that summer, at Ozerki and at Pavlovsk, so Moscow was not quite the very first hearing. St Petersburg heard it in the spring of 1883, with Anton Rubinstein conducting.The Piece That Wouldn't Stay Quiet
I came to conduct this overture thirteen times myself, more often than any other work of mine, including in Moscow in 1887 and in Prague in 1888. Gustav Mahler conducted it in Vienna in 1899, so I was in very good company. In 1954 Antal Doráti made a recording with real cannon shots, and in 1979 Erich Kunzel made the first digital recording of the work. Now it rings out every summer at American Independence Day fireworks concerts, a tradition that Arthur Fiedler and his Boston Pops helped to set.---
I hope you enjoyed learning about the backstory of my 1812 Overture as much as I enjoyed telling it. Looking back, it still amuses me that a piece I wrote without much warmth has become one of the works people remember me for. I conducted it 13 times, more often than anything else I wrote, so it seems I had plenty of chances to make my peace with it. There is still a lot more to discover about this overture. You could look into how the cannon came to be part of performances, or how the bells and the hymn fit together in the finale. If you're curious, please click on the links on this page to keep exploring the 1812 Overture. I'd be glad to have you along for the next part of the journey.