“1812 Overture,” Op. 49
Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)

[1880]

In 1880, as Russia was preparing for a huge national exhibition, Tchaikovsky fielded a request for a new showpiece from Nikolai Rubinstein, his boss at the Moscow Conservatory. Despite his “utmost loathing” for that type of commission, Tchaikovsky confided to his patron, “I do not have it in my heart to refuse such a request, and so I keep accepting these unsympathetic tasks regardless.”

Despite his ambivalence, Tchaikovsky had the new overture sketched out in a matter of weeks. After starting with a quotation from Russian Orthodox liturgy, the centerpiece of the “1812 Overture” is its musical rendering of Napoleon’s ill-fated advance on Moscow in 1812, in which “La Marseillaise” represents the French side, while “God Save the Tsar!” stands in for the Russians. To drive home the score’s climax, Tchaikovsky augmented the large orchestra with a military band, ringing bells, and even the sound of cannon fire.

Piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, four trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion, strings