Just when I thought I was done with my posts on the War of 1812, I found this description of a You Tube video of the War of 1812 Overature:
"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 seems to indicate 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.
So, the War of 1812 was an American, Canadian, and Russian victory????? No idea we all had this much in common.
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