1812 Overture Tchaikovsky

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was born in 1840 in Votkinsk, Russia. He was the second child

of six children. When he was eight years old, his father planed on moving to Moscow and

applying for a better job, but the plan fell through. This lead to both he and his older brother

being sent off to boarding school. After completing his schooling he enrolled in the St.

Petersburg School of Jurisprudence . While enrolled in school he worked as a clerk in the

Ministry of Justice . While working for Ministry of Justice he realized that his interest was

elsewhere and not in the study of law. He enrolled in the St. Petersburg Conservatory of music

at the insistence of his music teacher Nicholas Zaremba. He had found calling as a musician

while attending the Conservatory by Anton Rubinstein. He enjoyed it so much that the next year

he quit his job as a clerk and became a full-time musician. Within two more years, Nikolai the

brother of Anton Rubinstein asked Tchaikovsky to teach harmony at the Moscow Conservatory.

While Tchaikovsky was creating his first piece and waiting for it to emerge, he lived with

Nikolai Rubinstein (Gramophone).

In 1868, a Belgian soprano singer named Désireé Artôt visited St. Petersburg and

met Tchaikovsky. They became very close and thought about getting married. This however,

not occur as Désireé Artôt began seeing a Spanish singer and eventually married him. During

this time Tchaikovsky's career began to suffer, as on top of creating music, he also

critiqued music within the Moscow newspapers, traveled, and still continued to teach. Things

started to go down hill as Nikolai Rubinstein disapproved of his Piano Concerto No 1. He

suffered from depression due to his financial problems. He also had difficulty dealing with his

homosexuality due to the guilt that society placed upon homosexuals . Just as things were getting

to an all time low, a woman by the name of Nadezhda von Meck, heard of Tchaikovsky and

asked him to write music for large amounts of money. Around the same time, he married a

woman named Antonina Milyukova to cover up rumors that were going around about him

possibly being homosexual. The marriage soon ended, but his music career continued for the

next 13 years, and he created many musical pieces. Between the years 1881 and 1888 things

were slow and soon after that Nadezha von Meck ended their contract because she was no longer

financially able to help him. Then in the year 1893 at 150 years ?? Tchaikovsky died,of unkown

causes and to this days still remains a mystery (Gramphone).

Although Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky had many musical pieces, one of his more famous

pieces is Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture. The year 1812 was a toubled time for Europe and the

United States. US troops were fighting with the British and Native American Soldiers which was

referred to as the “second war of independence” (Sounds Historic). The French general Napoleon

Bonaparte invaded Russia with an army of 600,00 soldiers on June 1812, because he wanted Tsar

Alexander I to agree to the terms of the treaty that he created and demanded four years earlier

(Geographia).

The Cathedral of Christ the Saviour which is in Moscow, Russia asked Tchaikovsky to

create the “1812 Overture.” The musical piece was constructed for the celebration of the 70th

anniversary of Russia’s defeat over Napoleon. The piece was created in-between October 12th

and November 19, 1880. Although he was appointed to write the piece, which is considered to

be an honor, Tchaikovsky did not thoroughly enjoy writing the piece because he considered it to

be “very loud and noisy and completely without artistic merit, obviously written without warmth

or love” (Classic FM). It only took him one week to fully complete the 1812 Overture. Although

he did not enjoy writing the piece, it is still considered to be an honored work (Gramophone).

The first performance of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture was August 20, 1882 directed by

Ippolit Altani at the Arts and Industry Exhibition which was delayed by a year. Tchaikovsky had

also asked another conductor Eduard Nápravník to perform his piece in St. Petersburg but he

said

that the exhibition that instructed the overture should be able to debut it. Moscow and St.

Petersburg were the first two locations to have the 1812 performed by Anton Rubinstein. It was

first then recorded around 1916 on 78s by the Royal Albert Hall Orchestra under Landan Ronald

(Gramophone).
In the piece, it begins very soft with cellos and strings playing ‘God

Preserve Thy People’ to portray what the Russian people were feeling as they were going

through this very difficult time. In the next section of the piece, there is a horn that is playing that

has pieces from the “La Marseillaise,” which is the French national Anthem, which was placed in

the piece to represent that the French troops were there and ready for battle. After this piece, a

Russian folk song is played to show that they defeated Napoleon. The Russian’s made the

conscious decision to go back to Moscow and collect themselves for battle again. On the other

hand, Napoleon lost around 5,000 soldiers within his army due to illnesses, starvation, and

exhaustion. When the French start to lose the invasion it is shown throughout Tchaikovsky’s

piece because there “dizzying spirals of diminuendo.” On September 7th, the Russian Army and

Napoleon went to war at the Battle of Borodino, which is approximately 60 miles outside of

Moscow. During the entire battle, over 100,000 men died. After this, the overture has “its

explosive climax using the utmost power of brass and percussion, at which point the cannons add

their voices to the score,” which was said by Knox (Finding Dulcinea). The musical piece has 16

cannon shots that go off during the end but was considered a set back. The way they wanted to

fix it was to either not have the cannons going off, or have something that was less violent such

as an air rifle.

During the 1960’s technology within the stereo and editing skills were much more advanced

prior to the overture being written.

They were able to pre record actual explosive booms to insert

into the piece (Gramophone).

Tchaikovsky’s 1812 overture has been played for many years and to this day is still

played. The song is played all across America for the 4th of July. The reason it is played is

because America thinks that the overture portrays the country’s victory over the British during

the war of 1812. Arthur Fiedler who was also a musician, had The Boston Pops Orchestra play

it on July 4, 1974. It was supposed to be an interpretation of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, but

for the ending of the musical piece he included fireworks, cannons, as well as a choir. The reason

Arthur Fiedler put more pizzazz into the piece was to increase ticket sales for his performances,

even though Tchaikovsky intended for there to be cannons fired at the end. Americans truly

believed that this piece was written for their victory, but later found out that was written for

Russia and their victory over Napoleon in Moscow (Digital Journal)

A romantic Orchestra was always considered to be much bigger than in the classical

period. They had many more different instruments during their time. The piece was written

with

the story of what was going on at this time. The beginning of the piece has a four-part harmony

with a very slow tempo, and the rhythm is also very plain. This introduces the motif in the

beginning of the piece. Some would say that it gives off a somber mood. The first part is the

song “God Save the Tsar,” you can hear the strings such as violins playing this piece. When you

get further into the piece it starts to build as the orchestra starts to tie it together. Around

2:11seconds into the piece there is a change within the music as a big bang shifts the mood. That

only last for a few seconds, as the orchestra slowly builds piece by piece. When it gets into

around three minutes, there are very loud symbols that change the rhythm of the piece again.

Each section of the Overture has a meaning. It shows both sides setting up for war and then

eventually going to battle. This is the reasoning behind why the building of the orchestra gets

extremely loud and aggressive. It is portraying the actual war, and the loudness that would be

occurring during this time. It then eventually goes back into the first theme which is very solemn

to show the grief and sadness that would be happening post war. Although there are two different

themes, neither of them are fully developed because Tchaikovsky then inserts the French

National Anthem and by doing this it then changes the rhythm. The melodies that he decided to

use are striking and very different passing from the first theme to the second (Tchaikovsky,

YouTube).

Then when it reaches a little over half of the piece it then goes back to the second theme

that was playing that was very loud and striking. When it starts to get closer to the end it has a

more cheerful and happy tone, and this continues on throughout the rest of the piece show the

victory of the Russians. The cannons then go off making the rhythm change again as it is now

flowing differently and are repeated all the way to the end. The cannons are going off again at

the very end to show that the war is officially over (Tchaikovsky, YouTube).