1812 Overture

Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s (1840-1893) personal life was marked by fervent emotions: the sadness of losing his beloved mother at age 14, being uprooted to new cities, professional frustrations, a failed marriage that should never have been, and—according to recent speculation—a forced “suicide of honor” after being found guilty of seducing a young nobleman. Quite early, however, Tchaikovsky developed the means of channeling these forces into music. In 1880 he wrote two very different works that neatly summarize the many facets of his style. On one hand, we have the polished and occasionally introverted String Serenade in C major; on the other, the bombastic 1812 Overture, a firecracker (literally) exploding with bravura string playing and cymbal crashes. The former remained one of his favored and most accomplished pieces. But regarding the latter, it is accurate to say that Tchaikovsky never derived joy from its popular success.
The Overture’s story begins in 1880. Several large celebrations were planned for 1882, marking the 70th anniversary of Russia’s resistance of the Napoleonic invasion. Tchaikovsky’s friend suggested he write a piece to join the festivities, and work proceeded rapidly in fall 1880. However, the Tsar’s assassination in March 1881 put a serious damper on projected activities. Tchaikovsky’s piece was not performed until a state-sponsored Arts and Industry Exhibition later in 1882. The scene of that debut is ironically apt, for the Overture’s aesthetic range encompasses both art and, truth be told, much noise. The composer admitted as much in a letter to his patron, claiming the Overture would be "... very loud and noisy, but [without] artistic merit, because I wrote it without warmth and without love."
Scored for a massive orchestra with optional cannons, the 1812 Overture begins with some of its most promising material. Tchaikovsky quotes a Russian orthodox hymn in low strings, replete with luxuriant subdominant prolongations and building into greater animation. Drum tattoos usher in the La Marseillaise—signifying, well, you know who—combined with the composer’s signature soaring strings. Tchaikovsky is not aiming for subtlety here, of course, and the ensuing musical conflict between the French national anthem and two Russian folk songs shows programmatic music at its most obvious. As the French seem to be in the ascendancy, five cannon shots signal the famed Battle of Borodino and the turning tide of war. The French gained a Pyrrhic victory at Borodino after which they decided to cut their losses and fall back. An excessively long run of descending string figures symbolizes the retreat of Napoleon’s soldiers, and the work closes with a triumphal rendition of the opening hymn and coda on “God Save the Tsar.”
Today the work is best known for its appearance at July 4th celebrations across the United States, which had its hands full with a different war in 1812. Tchaikovsky himself conducted the work in New York City in 1891 for the dedication of Carnegie Hall, an occasion for which he would have had very mixed emotions. Such personal honors continued to come his way late in life. But to be associated with a work that he put so little of himself into; a work that showed little of the subtle craft that he felt capable of producing; a work that played to patriotic, militaristic emotions quite alien to his own—all these points mark the 1812 Overture as Tchaikovsky’s personal Pyrrhic victory.

(c) Jason Stell