Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture
Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture
The Gramophone Choice
Coupled with Capriccio italien, Op 45 Beethoven Wellingtons Sieg, ‘Die Schlacht bei Vittoria’, Op 91
University of Minnesota Brass Band; Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra; London Symphony Orchestra / Antál Dorati
Mercury download 434 360-2MM (66‘ · ADD) Recorded 1955-60. Buy from Amazon
Both battle pieces incorporate cannon fire recorded at West Point, with Wellington’s Victory adding antiphonal muskets, the 1812 the University of Minnesota Brass Band and the bells of the Laura Spelman Rockefeller carillon. In a recorded commentary on the 1812 sessions, Deems Taylor explains how, prior to ‘battle’, roads were blocked and an ambulance crew put on standby. The actual weapons used were chosen both for their historical authenticity (period instruments of mass destruction) and their sonic impact, the latter proving formidable even today. In fact, the crackle and thunder of Wellington’s Victory could easily carry a DDD endorsement; perhaps we should, for the occasion, invent a legend of Daring, Deafening and potentially Deadly. Dorati’s conducting is brisk, incisive and dramatic. The 1812 in particular suggests a rare spontaneity, with a fiery account of the main ‘conflict’ and a tub-thumping peroration where bells, band, guns and orchestra conspire to produce one of the most riotous key-clashes in gramophone history.
Capriccio italien was recorded some three years earlier (1955, would you believe) and sounds virtually as impressive. Again, the approach is crisp and balletic, whereas the 1960 LSO Beethoven recording triumphs by dint of its energy and orchestral discipline. As ‘fun’ CDs go, this must be one of the best – provided you can divorce Mercury’s aural militia from the terrifying spectre of real conflict.
Additional Recommendations
1812 Overture. Marche slave, Op 31. Festival Coronation March. Festival Overture on the Danish National Hymn. Moscow Cantata
Lyubov Sokolova mez Alexey Markov bar Mariinsky Chorus and Orchestra / Valery Gergiev
Mariinsky MAR0503 (64’ · DDD/DSD · T/t) Buy from Amazon
However disparaging Tchaikovsky might have been about the Festival Coronation March, who but he could have turned such an obvious show-stopper into something quite so exhilarating? But there you have it – state commissions meant something to Tchaikovsky (staunch monarchist and traditionalist that he was) and though he may have laboured with the means of delivery, the message was loud and clear.
Valery Gergiev clearly shares those sentiments wholeheartedly but perhaps the most notable feature of these performances is their refusal to undermine the characterful in pursuit of the sensational. The Marche slave, for instance, is resonant and resolute but what you really come away humming are the fife and drum effects and brilliant trumpetings of the orchestration. The Festival Overture on the Danish National Hymn (celebrating the future Tsar Alexander III’s marriage to the Danish Princess Dagmar) wears its classical craftsmanship with pride with the Russian national anthem – in minor mode humility – showing deference to the celebratory mood of the Danish anthem.
The 1812 catches one off-guard straight away with its unusually ‘vocal’ phrasing of the old Russian prayer at the outset and throughout the performance the song quotations sound ‘sung’. Tempo (blistering) rather than trenchancy defines the main Allegro with the Marseillaise sounding unusually corny (deliberate?) in the trumpets. You might want a bit more ‘crunch’ from the canons in that most ubiquitous peroration but the peeling cascades of strings chime tellingly with the panoply of bells.
Tchaikovsky, though, is most evidently (and gloriously) Tchaikovsky in the Moscow Cantata. A vintage melody turns the first page of Russian history, illuminating it in that inimitable Tchaikovskian way. The baritone monologue in praise of Moscow culminates in a marvellously stirring idea and in the second mezzo-soprano arioso honouring the women of Russia we find a heroine worthy of any Tchaikovsky opera. No doubt about it, Tchaikovsky had a gift for personalising even his most official duties. The word ‘dutiful’ was not really in his vocabulary.
Francesca da Rimini. Romeo and Juliet. 1812 Overturea. Eugene Onegin – Waltza; Polonaise
Santa Cecilia Academy Chorus and Orchestra, Rome / Antonio Pappano
EMI 370065-2 (71’ · DDD) Buy from Amazon
With chorus added in the 1812 as well as the Waltz from Eugene Onegin, this is an exceptional Tchaikovsky collection, a fine start for Antonio Pappano’s recordings with his Italian orchestra. What is very striking is how refreshing the 1812 is when played with such incisiveness and care for detail, with textures clearly defined. It starts with the chorus singing the opening hymn, expanding thrillingly from an extreme pianissimo to a full-throated fortissimo.
A women’s chorus then comes in very effectively, twice over, for one of the folk-themes, and at the end the full chorus sings the Tsar’s Hymn amid the usual percussion and bells, though Pappano avoids extraneous effects, leaving everything in the hands of the orchestral instruments. It is equally refreshing to have the Waltz from Eugene Onegin in the full vocal version from the opera, again wonderfully pointed, as is the Polonaise which follows.
What comes out in all the items is the way that Pappano, in his control of flexible rubato, is just as persuasive here as he is in Puccini, demonstrating what links there are between these two supreme melodists. So he builds the big melodies into richly emotional climaxes without any hint of vulgarity, strikingly so in both Francesca da Rimini and Romeo and Juliet. Pappano is impressive in bringing out the fantasy element in Francesca, and in Romeo the high dynamic contrasts add to the impact of the performance. There have been many Tchaikovsky collections like this, but with well balanced sound, outstandingly rich and ripe in the brass section, this is among the finest.
