# Wellington's Victory or 1812 Overture?



## SuperGalaxy (Jul 30, 2015)

Two similarly themed composition from two great composers (Beethoven and Tchaikovsky, of course). Both tell the story of a battle, both have cannons and national anthems and a lenght around 15 minutes. Which one do you think is the better?

For reference here is a recording of the Beethoven one...





...and the 1812 Overture by Tchaikovsky.





I'm a big fan of Tchaikovsky and his overture has a very special meaning for me, so I would definitely go with that one. On the other hand I don't know Beethoven's work nearly as well and I'm biased quite a bit. All in all, I'm very curious about your opinions.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

1812 Overture by light years.

I'm not even a big fan of Tchaikovsky and though I _am_ huge fan of Beethoven, I think old Ludwig was pulling the wool over our eyes with Wellington's Victory. I can find no redeeming qualities in it. It isn't remotely representative of Beethoven.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Tchaikovsky, by far.


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

This one for me: in order as mentioned on CD


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Pugg said:


> This one for me: in order as mentioned on CD


I have it. Absolutely wonderful recording. No preference of order, so I'll listen in the order the tracks are on the album.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

1812 easily - the Beethoven is seriously thin gruel in comparison. Appropriately dedicated to the Prince Regent who didn't deserve anything of more substance in any case.


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## Foodlover79 (Aug 8, 2015)

As far as I know, Beethoven composed Wellington's Victory overture to be played with some strange device, called the 'panharmonicon'. I don't know if there is still one of these organ-like things. Regarding the opus itself, it sounds like a circumstance work, without much meaning now IMHO.


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## Skilmarilion (Apr 6, 2013)

The opening couple of minutes of 1812 are surprisingly beautiful -- surprising because of the reputation of the piece, but hardly surprising given that it is Tchaikovsky after all.


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## Lucifer Saudade (May 19, 2015)

Beethoven once said that even what he ***** is better then anything I've ever wrote. I fully agree with him. Except in this case - my **** is definitely better then this wellington abomination! 

The audience at the time ate it up of course - it just tells you, some things are always the same


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

I've never heard Wellington's Overture, but the 1812 Overture is one of the first few dozen common practice classical pieces I ever got back in the '70s on LP. For many years it, and whatever else filled out the cassette, were the only pieces I ever heard by Tchaikovsky (I only got the 6 Symphonies in the '90s). I really should get a CD copy of the 1812 one of these days


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## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

1812 Overture is light, silly fun. Not great music, but certainly enjoyable if heard once every several years.

Wellington's Victory is just light and silly.


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## brotagonist (Jul 11, 2013)

Is there any other piece of music with canonfire?


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

I remember back when Quaker Oats' motto was, This is the cereal that's shot from guns, their commercial chose Tchaikovsky. When piece using cannons is used by a cereal named for pacifists, it has to be good.


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## Jeff W (Jan 20, 2014)

Somewhat relevant cartoon.

In the end, I second Mahlerian's sentiments on these pieces.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Mahlerian said:


> 1812 Overture is light, silly fun. Not great music, but certainly enjoyable if heard once every several years.
> 
> Wellington's Victory is just light and silly.


And we love both.


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## Potiphera (Mar 24, 2011)

brotagonist said:


> Is there any other piece of music with canonfire?


Battle music with some canon fire. I absolutely love this! 
I love when the music goes out of tune depicting the drunken battle weary soldiers. Brilliant!


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## Marsilius (Jun 13, 2015)

elgars ghost said:


> 1812 easily - the Beethoven is seriously thin gruel in comparison. Appropriately dedicated to the Prince Regent who didn't deserve anything of more substance in any case.


In some areas the Prince Regent had taste. He was a great fan of Jane Austen. Maybe he didn't "deserve anything of more substance" but he got it anyway - Miss Austen dedicated "Emma", considered by many experts to be her greatest work, to him.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

Marsilius said:


> In some areas the Prince Regent had taste. He was a great fan of Jane Austen. Maybe he didn't "deserve anything of more substance" but he got it anyway - Miss Austen dedicated "Emma", considered by many experts to be her greatest work, to him.


True, but if Beethoven's dedication is in some way tied in with the Regent's own contribution to the Napoleonic war effort (a role which the Regent exaggerated to a ludicrous degree as time went on) then it was aptly given.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

From a review of the premier concert: "We hardly need to add that laymen were completely amazed at this work and did not know what had happened to them, while on the other hand connoisseurs preferred the preceding [7th] symphony as a more noble work of art by far."


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

I would have to pick the greater Tchaikovsky piece here than Beethoven's.


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## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

brotagonist said:


> Is there any other piece of music with canonfire?


AC/DC's "For Those About To Rock . . .?" It's far more tasteful than "Wellington's Victory."

I wasn't familiar with the Biber piece above.


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## Alfacharger (Dec 6, 2013)

P. D. Q. Bach's 1712 Overture is better than Wellington.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Frasier: "Remember when you used to think the 1812 Overture was a great piece of classical music?"

Niles: "Was I ever that young?"


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## Richannes Wrahms (Jan 6, 2014)

Alfacharger said:


> P. D. Q. Bach's 1712 Overture is better than Wellington.


At 4:35 to 4:45 it does that thing from dissonance to kitsch-pastoral Richard Strauss does in a number of his tone poems. HEAR THAT STRAUSS, YOU ARE A JOKE


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## Haydn man (Jan 25, 2014)

You can keep both of them for me
I don't mind if I never hear either again


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## timh (Nov 14, 2014)

When I was about ten back in 1963 the headmaster of my school played the 1812 overture at school assembly. I thought it was so exciting that I put aside my scrapbook of The Beatles and started listening to Tchaikovsky. The first LP I bought was the 1812 overture on the Marble Arch label. So I have a certain affection for the old war horse.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

The Mercury Living Presence recording under Dorati was my first _1812_ on LP. I loved it, and I never liked the piece as much on other recordings. It was partly that Living Presence sound. There's never been anything quite like it. You could hear the rosin on the bows, the air around the strings! For me that was part of the music. And when I bought Dorati's _Nutcracker_, that sound became part of the _Nutcracker_ too. I'm glad I never heard _Wellingtons Victory_ on Living Presence. I might have thought it was good.

No I wouldn't.


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## gardibolt (May 22, 2015)

Love them both. 1812 is obviously the greater piece of serious music, but Wellington isn't meant to be serious music; it's meant to be a heart-on-your-sleeve patriotic extravaganza rejoicing at a rare defeat of Napoleon--unlike 1812, which also serves somewhat the same purpose but it also includes meditations on the pains and sorrows of war and the invasion of Russia. Wellington is intended as pretty much nothing but fun and it does its job well. I know it's fashionable to rip Wellington's on these boards, but there's plenty to like about it.

There are no surviving panharmonicons to my knowledge, but we have pictures of the last one on our website:

http://unheardbeethoven.org/search.php?Identifier=hess108

along with our synthesized attempt to duplicate the panharmonicon sound.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

My grandkids like the cannons in the adoration version. Both pieces are frankly pretty awful though.


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## DaveM (Jun 29, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> The Mercury Living Presence recording under Dorati was my first _1812_ on LP. I loved it, and I never liked the piece as much on other recordings. It was partly that Living Presence sound. There's never been anything quite like it. You could hear the rosin on the bows, the air around the strings! For me that was part of the music. And when I bought Dorati's _Nutcracker_, that sound became part of the _Nutcracker_ too. I'm glad I never heard _Wellingtons Victory_ on Living Presence. I might have thought it was good.
> 
> No I wouldn't.


It was one of my earliest LPs and it is packed away in the garage somewhere (put away my turntable some years ago). But I still remember the information enclosed (or was it on the back cover) about the extent to which they went to use cannon typical of the time and record them with the best techniques available. I remember the overall recording as being of very high quality.

Digressing: The sad thing was in those days that U.S. LP recordings were often of very high quality, but the vinyl used was often cheap and substandard compared to that of the UK & Europe so the incredible sound was accompanied by the unwelcome & uninvited orchestral instruments called ticks and pops.  RCA records were some of the worst in that category. Mercury perhaps not so bad though.


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## Autocrat (Nov 14, 2014)

I hate them both to the extent that I'll never by choice listen to them again. Which one I hate the least is irrelevant.


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## jenspen (Apr 25, 2015)

Marsilius said:


> In some areas the Prince Regent had taste. He was a great fan of Jane Austen. Maybe he didn't "deserve anything of more substance" but he got it anyway - Miss Austen dedicated "Emma", considered by many experts to be her greatest work, to him.


The Prince Regent did have taste and he certainly was a fan of JA (copies of her novels in each of his residences) but (donning my smarty boots) she was not a fan of his. The dedication was more or less by Royal Command - Prince Regent's librarian suggested it and gave her helpful suggestions for a novel celebrating the royal House of the Regent's soon-to-be son-in-law - to which Jane famously replied:

_You are very, very kind in your hints as to the sort of Composition which might recommend me at present, & I am fully sensible that an Historical Romance, founded on the House of Saxe Cobourg might be much more to the purpose of Profit or Popularity, than such pictures of domestic Life in Country Villages as I deal in - but I could no more write a Romance than an Epic Poem. - I could not sit seriously down to write a serious Romance under any other motive than to save my Life, & if it were indispensable for me to keep it up & never relax into laughing at myself or other people, I am sure I should be hung before I had finished the first Chapter._

PS "Emma" is my all-time favourite novel


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