Cannons Included in Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture
The Listen Guide
1812 Overture in E-flat major, Op. 49
I'm Tchaikovsky, and I'm glad you've opened the listen guide to my 1812 Overture. You'll hear Russian themes and the French tune "La Marseillaise" collide in one lively movement of about fifteen to twenty minutes, and that clash is what makes this overture so gripping. This site also teaches you to recognize pieces by me and my fellow composers the moment they start playing, so see how you do in training .
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Where to Put Your Ears
Think of this piece as a story in three parts, and your only job is to follow who is speaking. Start by listening for the low strings, the cellos and violas, because they sing the hymn that begins everything. When the music gets busy, try to catch the brass and woodwinds passing phrases back and forth, a bit like people calling to each other across a crowded market. Save some attention for the very end, where bells and brass take over, and don't worry if you can't name every instrument you hear.What's in a Name
I called it 1812 Overture because it remembers Russia's defence against Napoleon's invasion in that year. In Russian the title is "1812 год", which simply means "The Year 1812", and you will sometimes see the piece called the Solemn Overture or the Festival Overture. Please don't treat it as a history lesson, though, because "God Save the Tsar!" did not exist in 1812, and the first official Russian anthem dates from 1815. The title names the year, but the music is really a broad, bold picture of a nation's courage and relief.Choosing a Shape
When Nikolay Rubinstein asked me for a piece, he said any form would do, as long as it ran between 15 and 25 minutes. So instead of worrying about labels like sonata or rondo, I wrote one single movement of 428 bars that lasts about 15 to 20 minutes. It begins with a Largo and moves into an Allegro giusto, and I think of it as three sections: the hymn, the battle and the celebration. I'll take you through them one at a time, and you'll hear how each grows out of the one before, like chapters in a short book.Section 1: A Prayer Before Anything Happens
The first section is slow, marked Largo, and it opens with the hymn "O Lord, Save Thy People" in the cellos and violas. The mood is hushed and sincere, a whole country at prayer before a single shot is fired. I let the hymn spread through the orchestra, adding voices little by little, so the calm slowly picks up a note of worry. Try not to fidget here, because this stillness is what gives the noise later on its full weight.Section 2: Everybody Talks at Once
Then the tempo jumps to Allegro giusto, which means lively but in firm, steady time, and the mood turns from prayer to conflict. "La Marseillaise" arrives to stand for the French army, and Russian themes rise up to answer it. The reason I chose that tune isn't written down anywhere, so you're free to make up your own explanation. Listen to how the music pushes and pulls, with the French tune returning in fragments while the Russian music grows broader and more confident.Section 3: The Loudest Thank-You I Could Manage
The finale brings in "God Save the Tsar!" together with the bells, and the whole orchestra swells around them. I asked for large bells, all of the same pitch, so that they ring out like one enormous voice rather than a tune. An off-stage brass band can join in as well, which makes the sound seem to come from every direction at once. The real cannon shots you may have heard came later as a performance tradition, since the "Bombardone" in my score was a large suspended drum.Over to You
Now it's your turn: press play, sit back and let the music carry you from that quiet hymn to the ringing finale. Keep in mind what we talked about, and listen for the cellos at the start, the two tunes in the battle and the bells at the end. I will admit I wasn't proud of this piece, yet I conducted it 13 times, more often than any other work of mine. I hope that by the last bell you'll understand why, even if I never quite said so myself.---
I hope you enjoyed learning about my 1812 Overture and what to listen for along the way. Now that you know the hymn, the borrowed tunes and the bells, you may find that the piece sounds a little different each time you return to it. I wrote it without much warmth, and I never expected it to become the work I conducted more often than any other, so it still surprises me how many listeners have taken it to their hearts. There is still more to discover about the 1812 Overture, from the story of how it came to be to the many ways people have performed it since. If you'd like to keep exploring, please click on the links on this page and see where they take you. Thank you for listening with me, and I hope we meet again in the next piece.