Fourth of July Tribute: YouTube - 1812 Overture Finale - Tchaikovsky

1812 Overture Finale - Tchaikovsky (Mercury Living Presence) 





Tchaikovsky was commissioned by Nicolas Rubinstein in 1880 to write a festive and patriotic piece to coincide with the Moscow Cathedral of the Savior (built to commemorate the liberation of the Russians from the 1812 Napoleonic invasion).  There already existed a body of precedent for the use of brass band, church bells, and cannon together with symphony orchestra. Plans seem to indicate an open-air performance in the great square before the Kremlin, with the cannon to be fired by electrical signal from the conductor's desk, while at a given signal the bells of the new Cathedral, together with the hundreds of bells hung in all the other Kremlin churches and towers, were to add their festive clamor to the whole grand uproar. However, the Cathedral consecration took place in the summer 1881 minus Tchaikovsky's music.  It was Edward Napravnik who finally conducted the premiere of the Overture 1812 during an all-Tchaikovsky concert at the Moscow Exhibition--presumably under normal concert hall conditions.


UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA BRASS BAND
-Bronze Cannon(1775)Douay France, courtesy U.S.Military Academy,West Point, N.Y.
-Bells of the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Carillon,The Riverside Church


CONDUCTED BY ANTAL DORATI
Recorded on April 5, 1958 in Northrop Auditorium, Minneapolis.

Comment:  Every 4th of July, the US celebrates its birth with a musical piece by a Russian composer about an attack on Moscow by a French emperor, usually recorded by a Canadian orchestra directed by a Scandinavian conductor.  Is this a great country, or what?
 Response:  True... and doesn't it get your blood stirring?

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