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In support of Ukraine, San Diego Symphony pulls Tchaikovsky’s ‘1812 Overture’ from concert

The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park
The San Diego Symphony, which performs at The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park in the summer, has announced that it is pulling the 1812 Overture from its upcoming Aug. 26 concert.
(Jenna Selby/San Diego Symphony)

The popular Tchaikovsky work — commissioned and written to celebrate a Russian military victory — has long been a staple at the symphony’s summer season-ending concert. The Aug. 26 concert will still have Tchaikovsky pieces but will exclude the “1812 Overture.”

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Following the lead of many orchestras across the globe, the San Diego Symphony on Thursday announced that it is pulling Tchaikovsky’s “1812 Overture,” a beloved work that has long been a staple at its summer season-ending performance, because of the war in Ukraine.

The 15-minute piece — with its signature sounds of dramatic cannon fire and pealing bells — was commissioned to commemorate Russia’s victory against Napoleon’s army in the winter of 1812. In America, it is often accompanied by grand firework displays, especially around the Fourth of July.

Though it has been performed many times in the history of the San Diego Symphony, the “1812 Overture” has been a part of the orchestra’s summer repertoire, without fail, since 1998.

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In the last few weeks, more than a dozen orchestras around the United States — from Connecticut to Wyoming — have dropped the piece from their programs as a way to support Ukraine as it continues to be under attack by Russia.

“Due to current world events, the San Diego Symphony has made the decision to change its 1812 Tchaikovsky Spectacular concert repertoire. Now titled Tchaikovsky’s Symphonic Tales, the program will no longer include Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture,” the symphony said in a statement, referring to the ensemble’s Aug. 26 concert at The Rady Shell at Jacobs Park.

“While this program has been a regular of San Diego Symphony summer seasons past, with the ongoing Russian war that threatens the people of Ukraine, who — as we speak — are fighting for their very lives, we feel that it is important to amend this program. Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture was commissioned and written to celebrate a Russian military victory and includes the sounds of battle and violent artillery,” the statement reads.

“The San Diego Symphony highly respects the work of Russian composers and intends to carry that legacy on through our musical performances. ... But, we strongly feel that this summer is not the time in which we should perform the 1812 Overture.”

A newly announced program still features Tchaikovsky works, including “The Tempest” overture, but it excludes the “1812 Overture,” which Tchaikovsky wrote in just six weeks.

The San Diego Symphony concert featuring the “1812 Overture” — normally held around Labor Day weekend — signifies the traditional close of the symphony’s summer season. This year, however, the symphony has extended the season well into late September, after which the outdoor venue by the bay begins hosting concerts for the fall season while Copley Symphony Hall continues to be under renovation.

In pulling the “1812 Overture,” the San Diego Symphony joins a long list of orchestras revisiting the popular work. This year, for the first time since 1978, the Cleveland Orchestra omitted the work from its Fourth of July concerts.

“Given the way Russia is behaving right now and the propaganda that is out there, to go and play music that celebrates their victory I just think would be upsetting for a lot of people,” André Gremillet, president and chief executive of the orchestra, told The New York Times. “Everyone would hear that reference, complete with the cannons, to the current war involving Russia. It would be insensitive to people in general, and certainly to the Ukrainian population in particular.”

Some groups, eager to show solidarity with Ukraine, have added renditions of the Ukrainian national anthem to their programs to counter the overture’s exaltation of czarist Russia. Still others are reworking it, in one case by adding calls for peace.

While Tchaikovsky was not particularly fond of his overture when it debuted in Moscow in 1882, it has since become one of classical music’s best known pieces.

Since the 1970s, when the Boston Pops began playing it before crowds of hundreds of thousands along the banks of the Charles River, the overture has become a popular part of Fourth of July celebrations. It is performed each year by hundreds of ensembles in big cities and small towns. Local governments often supply howitzers for the overture’s stirring conclusion.

Interpretations of the piece have changed over time, said Emily Richmond Pollock, an associate professor of music at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. While it was first used to celebrate the Russian empire, it later became synonymous with U.S. democracy. Now, in some circles, it symbolizes authoritarianism in modern Russia.

“It has been used for different purposes throughout history,” Pollock told The New York Times. “In 2022, with ambivalence about Russian power, it has come to mean something different. And it could mean something different again in the future.”

The Hartford Symphony Orchestra in Connecticut, which has played the overture since 1995, felt that “celebrating a Russian military victory is just too sensitive a topic right now” and removed the piece from its program, said Steve Collins, the ensemble’s president and chief executive.

“The risk of offending and running afoul of our Ukrainian American friends — the very people we want to support — far outweighed any benefit to playing this piece,” he said. “It just wasn’t that important, in our final analysis, to perform this piece this summer.”

The San Diego Symphony, in a statement, said: “We join the many millions across the world who wholeheartedly support Ukraine and its people in one of the darkest hours of their history and carry hope that this war will end soon.”

The New York Times contributed to this report.

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