Classical Music Composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - Classical Music 1812 Overture

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Classical Music Composer: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

1812 Overture

Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (Пётр Ильич Чайковский), tr. Pëtr Il'ič Čajkovskij, IPA [ˈpʲɵtr ɪlʲˈjitɕ tɕɪjˈkofskʲɪj]; May 7, 1840 [O.S. April 25] – November 6, 1893 [O.S. October 25]), often called Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky (pronounced /ˈpiːtər ˈɪlɨtʃ tʃaɪˈkɒvski/) in English, was a Russian composer of the Romantic era. Tchaikovsky wrote music across a range of genres, including symphony, opera, ballet, instrumental, chamber and song. He wrote some of the most popular concert and theatrical music in the current classical repertoire, including the ballets Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty and The Nutcracker, as well as the 1812 Overture, his First Piano Concerto, his last three numbered symphonies, and the opera Eugene Onegin.

Born into a middle-class family, Tchaikovsky was educated towards a career as a civil servant, despite the musical precocity he had demonstrated. Against the wishes of his family, he chose to pursue a musical career, and, in 1862, he entered the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, graduating in 1865. The formal, Western-oriented training he received set him apart from the contemporary nationalistic movement embodied by the influential group of young Russian composers known as The Five, with whom Tchaikovsky sustained a mixed professional relationship throughout his career.

Although he enjoyed many popular successes, Tchaikovsky was never emotionally secure, and his life was punctuated by personal crises and periods of depression. Contributory factors were his suppressed homosexuality and fear of exposure, his disastrous marriage, and the sudden collapse of the one enduring relationship of his adult life, his 13-year association with the wealthy widow Nadezhda von Meck. Amid private turmoil Tchaikovsky's public reputation grew; he was honored by the Tsar, awarded a lifetime pension and lauded in the concert halls of the world. His sudden death at the age of 53 is generally ascribed to cholera, but some attribute it to suicide.

Although perennially popular with concert audiences across the world, Tchaikovsky's music was often dismissed by critics in the early and mid-20th century as being vulgar and lacking in elevated thought. By the end of the 20th century, however, Tchaikovsky's status as a significant composer was generally regarded as secure.

Classical Music

Tchaikovsky wrote many works which are popular with the classical music public, including his Romeo and Juliet, the 1812 Overture, his three ballets (The Nutcracker, Swan Lake, The Sleeping Beauty) and Marche Slave. These, along with two of his four concertos, three of his six numbered symphonies and, of his 10 operas, The Queen of Spades and Eugene Onegin, are probably among his most familiar works. Almost as popular are the Manfred Symphony, Francesca da Rimini, the Capriccio Italien and the Serenade for Strings. His three string quartets and piano trio all contain beautiful passages, while recitalists still perform some of his 106 songs. Tchaikovsky also wrote over a hundred piano works, covering the entire span of his creative life. Brown has asserted that "while some of these can be challenging technically, they are mostly charming, unpretentious compositions intended for amateur pianists." He adds, however, that "there is more attractive and resourceful music in some of these pieces than one might be inclined to expect."

Classical Music

Creative range

Tchaikovsky's formal conservatory training allowed him to write works with Western-oriented attitudes and techniques. His music showcases a wide range and breadth of technique, from a poised "Classical" form simulating 18th century Rococo elegance, to a style more characteristic of Russian nationalists, or (according to Brown) a musical idiom expressly to channel his own overwrought emotions. Despite his reputation as a "weeping machine," self-expression was not a central principle for Tchaikovsky. In a letter to von Meck dated December 5, 1878, he explained there were two kinds of inspiration for a symphonic composer, a subjective and an objective one, and that program music could and should exist, just as it was impossible to demand that literature make do without the epic element and limit itself to lyricism alone. Correspondingly, the large scale orchestral works Tchaikovsky composed can be divided into two categories—symphonies in one category, and other works such as symphonic poems in the other. According to musicologist Francis Maes, program music such as Francesca da Rimini or the Manfred Symphony was as much a part of the composer's artistic credo as the expression of his "lyric ego." Maes also identifies a group of compositions which fall outside the dichotomy of program music versus "lyrical ego," where he hearkens toward pre-Romantic aesthetics. Works in this group include the four orchestral suites, Capriccio Italien, the Violin Concerto and the Serenade for Strings.

One of the recognizable characteristics of Tchaikovsky’s works is his use of harmony or rhythm to create a sudden, powerful release of emotion. Like the other Romantic composers of the era, Tchaikovsky colored his works with rich harmonies, utilizing German Augmented Sixth chords, minor triads with added major sixths, and augmented triads. These colorful harmonies progressed to moments of extreme emotion. Though the peaks were preceded by building tension, Tchaikovsky was often criticized for his lack of development throughout his material. Yet what critics failed to accept was that fact that Tchaikovsky was not attempting to smoothly develop his works, but rather disregard seamless flow and embrace the intense emotion created by momentous bursts of fervid harmonies.

Reception and reputation

Although Tchaikovsky's music has always been popular with audiences, it has at times been judged harshly by musicians and composers. However, his reputation as a significant composer is now generally regarded as secure. The initially criticized Swan Lake is currently seen as the first step in Tchaikovsky’s reputation as one of the most important and talented ballet composers. His music has won a significant following among concert audiences that is second only to the music of Beethoven, thanks in large part to what Harold C. Schonberg terms "a sweet, inexhaustible, supersensuous fund of melody ... touched with neuroticism, as emotional as a scream from a window on a dark night." According to Wiley, this combination of supercharged melody and surcharged emotion polarized listeners, with popular appeal of Tchaikovsky's music counterbalanced by critical disdain of it as vulgar and lacking in elevated thought or philosophy. More recently, Tchaikovsky's music has received a professional reevaluation, with musicians reacting more favorably to its tunefulness and craftsmanship.

 Public considerations

Tchaikovsky believed that his professionalism in combining skill and high standards in his musical works separated him from his contemporaries in The Five. He shared several of their ideals, including an emphasis on national character in music. His aim, however, was to link those ideals to a standard high enough to satisfy Western European criteria. His professionalism also fueled his desire to reach a broad public, not just nationally but internationally, which he would eventually do.

He may also have been influenced by the almost "eighteenth-century" patronage prevalent in Russia at the time, which was still strongly influenced by its aristocracy. In this style of patronage, the patron and the artist often met on equal terms. Dedications of works to patrons were not gestures of humble gratitude but expressions of artistic partnership. The dedication of the Fourth Symphony to Nadezhda von Meck is known to be a seal on their friendship. Tchaikovsky's relationship with Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich bore creative fruit in the Six Songs, Op. 63, for which the grand duke wrote the words. Tchaikovsky found no aesthetic conflict in playing to the tastes of his audiences, though it was never established that he satisfied any other tastes but his own. The patriotic themes and stylization of 18th-century melodies in his works lined up with the values of the Russian aristocracy.

Classical Music Composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

Classical Music: 1812 Overture

The Year 1812, Festival Overture in E flat major, Op. 49, popularly known as the 1812 Overture (French: Ouverture Solennelle, L'Année 1812, Russian: Торжественная увертюра «1812 год», Festival Overture The Year 1812), is an overture written by Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in 1880 to commemorate Russia's defense of Moscow against Napoleon's advancing Grande Armée at the Battle of Borodino in 1812. The overture debuted in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow on August 20, 1882 in the Gregorian or NS calendar (the date in the Julian or OS calendar was August 8). The overture is best known for its climactic volley of cannon fire and ringing chimes.

On his 1891 visit to the United States, Tchaikovsky conducted the piece at the dedication of Carnegie Hall in New York City. While this piece has little connection with United States history besides the War of 1812 diverting the British, freeing Napoleon to attack Russia, it is often a staple at Fourth of July celebrations, such as the annual show by the Boston Pops and at Washington DC's annual program called A Capitol Fourth.

Instrumentation

The 1812 Overture is scored for an orchestra comprising the following:

• brass band
• woodwind: piccolo, 2 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets in B♭, 2 bassoons
• brass: 4 horns in F, 2 cornets in B♭, 2 trumpets in E♭, 3 trombones, tuba
• percussion: timpani, bass drum, snare drum, cymbals, tambourine, triangle, bells, cannon
• strings: (Violins I, II, Violas, Violoncellos, Double basses)

Notes:

1. "Open" Instrumentation consisting of "any extra brass instruments" available. In some indoor performances, the part may be played on an organ.

2. Sometimes substituted with tubular bells or recordings of carillons.

3. In the sections in which cannon shots are played, the actual cannons are sometimes replaced by recorded cannons or played on a piece of staging, usually with a large wooden mallet or sledge hammer. The bass drum and tam-tam are also regularly used in indoor performances.

Classical Musical structure

Sixteen cannon shots are written into the score of the Overture. Beginning with the plaintive Russian Orthodox Troparion of the Holy Cross ("God Preserve Thy People") played by eight cellos and four violas, the piece moves through a mixture of pastoral and militant themes portraying the increasing distress of the Russian people at the hands of the invading French. This passage includes a Russian folk dance, "At the Gate, at my Gate." At the turning point of the invasion – the Battle of Borodino – the score calls for five Russian cannon shots confronting a boastfully repetitive fragment of "La Marseillaise". A descending string passage represents the subsequent retreat of the French forces, followed by victory bells and a triumphant repetition of God Preserve Thy People as Moscow burns to deny winter quarters to the French. A musical chase scene appears, out of which emerges the anthem "God Save the Tsar!" thundering with eleven more precisely scored shots. The overture utilizes counterpoint to reinforce the appearance of the leitmotif that represents the Russian forces throughout the song.



There are several recordings of the overture in a transcription by American conductor Igor Buketoff. with the following changes and additions:

• The opening segment, "God Preserve Thy People" is sung a cappella by a choir.
• A children's or women's choir added to the flute and cor anglais duet rendition of "At the Gate".
• The orchestra and chorus unite in the climax with a triumphant version of "God Preserve Thy People" and "God Save the Tsar".

Recording history

• The earliest traceable orchestral recording, by the Royal Albert Hall Orchestra conducted by Landon Ronald, was issued by HMV on three 12-inch 78rpm sides in 1916. It includes bells but no cannon effects.
• A 1927 Cleveland recording contains dozens of bass drum "shots" at random in the final moments of the piece.
• A Royal Opera Orchestra recording of about the same time contains no shots at all. Various more recent recordings feature modern or antique artillery firing in approximation of the score, and other improvisations and bell sounds from tubular chimes to fake bell sounds which do no zvon ringing.
• Antal Doráti's landmark 1954 Mercury Records recording with the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra (recorded in mono in 1954 and in stereo in 1958), partially recorded at West Point, and using the Yale Memorial Carillon in New Haven, Connecticut, uses a period French single muzzleloading cannon shot dubbed in 16 times as written, and was such an advancement in authenticity that on the first edition of the recording, one side played the Overture and the other side played a narrative by Deems Taylor about how the feat was accomplished. The stereophonic version was recorded on April 5, 1958 using the bells of the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Carillon, at Riverside Church. On this Mercury Living Presence Stereo recording the spoken commentary was also given by Deems Taylor and was coupled with Tchaikovsky's "Capriccio Italien". Later editions coupled the 1812 Overture with Dorati's recording of Beethoven's Wellington's Victory, which featured the London Symphony Orchestra and real cannons.
• Later recordings have been variously done by similar means. The Black Dyke Mills Brass Band have also recorded a brass band arrangement of the piece. This recording includes the cannon shots as originally written. In 1990, in a worldwide celebration of the 150th anniversary of Tchaikovsky's birth, the Overture was recorded in the city of his youth by the St. Petersburg Philharmonic using 16 muzzleloading cannons fired live as written in the 1880 score. That recording was done within earshot of the composer's grave.
• The 1975 recording of the Grove Hill School Band's repertoire, including the 1812, improvised the cannons by hitting a large plastic bucket with a spade.