Well in lieu of there being no symphony update this weekend as I'm off to Lethbridge for a friend's birthday I've composed two small posts of two popular overtures to tie over till next week.

The first one is perhaps the most famous among western music observers, The Festival Overture "The Year 1812" in E♭ major, Op. 49 by Tchaikovsky is a piece that nearly everyone has heard, but are not always aware of such a fact. the work was written in 1888 in commemoration of the 1812 Russian defense against the invading Grande Armée of Napoleon at the Battle of Borodino.


Part 1

The work is quite a "show piece" for lack of a better term. The plan for the premiere was to have 16 programmed cannon shots fired at direct timing with the music and invoke the church bells of of the Cathedral of the Christ the Savior and every other church in downtown Moscow. The work was commissioned in connection with the 25th anniversary of the coronation of Tsar Alexander II (1881) and the 1882 Moscow Arts and Industry exhibition. That plan for the premiere may have been too ambitious. To boot, the project fell apart when Alexander II was assassinated in the March of that year, deflating much of the reason behind the festivities.

The piece uses fragments from three distinct hymns, the work opens with a quote from the Russian orthodox hymn "God Preserve thy People," about halfway through a lengthy fragment of "La Marseillaise" is referenced and as the piece ascends to its climax of the out of the cannon shots quotes the Russian anthem (at the time of composition) "God Save the Tsar."


Part 2
Despite the assertion from Tchaikovsky that he was not good at writing Festival music, and that the overture would be "loud and noise with no musical merit because he wrote it without warmth and love," the work has stood the test of time and is one of the composer's most beloved works.

Of course it is a featured piece of music in the movie, "V for Vendetta," so it also gains familiar ground there, but with less poetic impact.