GEORGE BAKER (Baritone)
THE B.B.C. ORCHESTRA (Section D)
(Led by LAURANCE TURNER )
Conducted by JOSEPH LEWIS
THIS is really a piece of festival music called ' The Year 1812,' and not an overture at all. It was written to be performed at the consecration of a church in Moscow which had just been built, some sixty years after the event, to commemorate the retreat of Napoleon's army in 1812, but the performance was, after all, abandoned, probably because of the difficulties involved. As a matter of fact, the overture is practically never performed as the composer intended it should be-that is, in an open city square, with a great orchestra, reinforced by a full military band, the ringing of cathedral bells, and the firing of real cannon. The best we can do in the concert room is to pretend. Thus, the organ is for the time being a large military band, a framework supporting a few bells is a cathedral, and an ordinary bass drum is a mild, but handy, substitute for guns. Even so, the racket at the end of the overture is formidable enough, as has often been said. to excuse anybody's retreat, let alone Napoleon's, had he heard it.