Tchaikovsky - For the Record

I mentioned Tchaikovsky’s Festival Overture: 1812 in my other post today. I feel that I should point out for the record that the piece, even though played on the 4th of July, has nothing whatsoever to do with American history. It celebrates the defeat/retreat of the Napoleon’s Grand Armee at Moscow, which was (arguably) the turning point of the Napoleonic Wars.

I should also note that Tchaikovsky indulged in a bit of artistic license with the piece. Napoleon was not defeated by the Russian military at Moscow. It was the arrival of the Russian winter, not a hail of Russian bullets that defeated Napoleon. Also, neither La Marsailles nor God Save the Tsar would have been in use in 1812. Nevertheless, as a festival piece, composed on commission, Tchaikovsky would have been obligated to put the best face on the event and would have undoubtedly drawn upon themes with which his audience would have been familiar. Historical nit-picking aside, it is an undeniably powerful and enduring piece.

This entry was posted on Thursday, 24 August 2006 at 21:30 and is filed under Music, History. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.