The 1812 Overture (full title: Festival Overture "The Year 1812" in E flat major, Op. 49) is Pyotr Llyich Tchaikovsky's stirring orchestral tribute commemorating Russia's 1812 defense against Napoleon's advancing Grande Armée at the Battle of Borodino, during the devastating French invasion of Russia. Field Marshall Mikhail Kutuzov's defiant stand 75 miles west of Moscow greatly weakened the French army, forced its subsequent withdrawal from Moscow, saved Russia from certain defeat, and marked the major turning point of the Napoleonic Wars. The 1812 Overture is best known for its thunderous volley of cannon Tchaikovsky's work is one of fewer than ten that use guns or cannon in their score, and is one of fewer still that call for the ringing of a carillon, fire and ringing chimes, which evoke the fury of the battlefield and the Russian people's subsequent victory. (During the Battle of Borodino, the two sides fired an average estimated 15,000 rounds of cannon fire per hour, over the course of 15 hours. For those who are mathematically challenged, 15,000 * 15 = 225,000 shots.)

The Overture debuted in the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow on August 20, 1882, a church that was destroyed by Stalin in the 1930s.

Sixteen cannon shots are written into the score of the Overture. Beginning with the plaintive hymn "God Preserve Thy People", which was the old Czarist Russian National Anthem, 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. 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 attrition 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 cannon shots.

Edited from Wikipedia.

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