Gripe gripe gripe

[rhu]

Does anyone play the complete 1812 Overture any more? It's bad enough that we celebrate our independence from Great Britian by performing a work written to celebrate the Russians' victory over France, but at least play the whole dang thing! (We just watched the concert from Washington D.C. and they abridged it; Boston's been abridging it since CBS took over and ruined everything.)

Update. I just switched over to channel 4, and it appears that this year Boston is playing the whole thing before the switch to national coverage. Good for them.

Comments

[cramerica.livejournal.com]

Back when I was in a saxophone n-tet, our fearless leader put together a 6-sax arrangement of the 1812 Overture-- not only the complete version, but also with a SWEET alternate ending that he found while researching Tchaikovsky, and that IMHO sounds better than the original ending.

Of course, my Russian gf at the time said that our recording sounded like a music box. Darn Russian judge.

[lucretia-borgia.livejournal.com]

Dunno 'bout you, but I'd much rather hear Royal Fireworks Music instead. Though maybe it would miss the point.

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

One year long ago we were on the Esplanade and had brought a radio to listen to 'CRB play RFM during the fireworks. (This is before they started having an "official" soundtrack to the fireworks.) Someone nearby asked us to turn it off since "that isn't fireworks music."

I think RFM is a perfectly wonderful choice --- rubbing salt in their wounds. :-)

[leighjen.livejournal.com]

I am pretty sure that each of the three years I have been on the River for the fireworks, the Pops has played the whole thing, it is just that the national coverage never shows it.

I do have to admit, while I like the tune well enough, I only really get excited when the church bells start to ring. There is something so cool about real church bells ringing for the sake of performance art!

[autotruezone.livejournal.com]

Likewise, my recollection is that they played the whole thing, but CBS's national coverage joined it in progress. There *was* one year (before CBS started covering) when they played only the end. IIRC, it was in Lockhart's first couple of years with the Pops, and they did it because they wanted to get it in before a thunderstorm arrived.

Do they really use church bells? I know that sometimes the TV coverage has *shown* church bells ringing, but they also show a guy in the Hatch Shell hitting bells with a hammer, so I always assumed the bells they showed on TV were just for effect. Also, I didn't think there were any churches close enough to the Esplanade to be heard well there.

This year, I listened to the performance on a portable radio while walking back to the car from the Newton fireworks. Alas, neither the bells nor the cannons could be clearly heard. I'm not sure whether it was because of the low quality of my portable radio, or because of the broadcast being on AM (this year, it was on WBZ, not WCRB), but my daughter was most disappointed at not hearing the cannons (she's a big fan of Beethoven's Wig and its version of 1812, titled "Tchaikovsky's Cannonball").

[leighjen.livejournal.com]

Nope, they really do ring real church bells.

Change Ringing at The Church of the Advent (http://www.theadvent.org/parilife/bells.htm):

" They have rung out -- Arthur Fiedler said gloriously -- for holidays as well as the weekly service ever since. The Advent's bells have the unique distinction of being heard throughout the United States every Independence Day during the national television broadcast of the Boston Pops' annual Fourth of July concert, where they participate in the performance of Tchaikovsky's '1812 Overture.'"

I found some other references to "near-by church bells," so, WHEE, real church bells!