Tchaikovsky, 1812 Overture

Is there a more famous piece of “classical” music than Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture?

To answer that question, we need to think about the things that contribute to a given work’s fame. And I don’t mean the kind of fame that a work earns when scholars decide it has historical significance. I’m thinking of works that the public at large believes to be especially noteworthy and valuable.

Even if people think they do not know the music, the title is well known and helps draw them to the piece. Certain of the passages also will be familiar, as they are sounded in many contexts, like commercials and films. Yet, if you look for online performances of this famous work, you might be surprised at how few there are. I blame the cannons.

The work depicts Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812. Everything about that campaign was massive. Napoleon marched with an army of half a million, covering vast territory. The Battle of Borodino near Moscow was the bloodiest single day of the Napoleonic Wars. Although Napoleon technically won that battle and occupied Moscow, his eventual retreat was an epic disaster, costing the lives of the vast majority of his army. (For a fascinating first-hand account of the retreat, read Memoirs of Sergeant Bourgogne.)

The campaign had an enormous and lasting effect on Russia, which naturally celebrates its decisive victory over the seemingly invincible Napoleon. Artistic works about the campaign tend to be epic in scale as in Tolstoy’s novel War and Peace. Although the 1812 Overture is not long, it is monumental in other ways.

Tchaikovsky scored the work for a large orchestra to which he added a brass band, chorus, pipe organ, carillon, and of course cannons. So this is a work well-suited to outdoor extravaganzas. The orchestra is frequently scaled down, for example with cellos substituting for the chorus and chimes for the carillon. But cannons are the real draw, and so the piece cannot be fully performed indoors.

For me, having an actual choir is more important than booming a real cannon. Tchaikovsky opens with a famous passage of Orthodox chant that sets the stage for the entire work. The indoor performance presented here gets that right and pretty much everything else that follows.