It is, on the face of it, a little surprising that one of the most popular of all composers for the orchestra should be the tortured figure of Peter Illyich Tchaikovsky. The features of his character and career are well documented: his extreme sensitivity verging on morbidness; his homosexuality which he repressed so strongly; his disastrous marriage which lasted only 9 weeks, after which he tried to drown himself; his intimate correspondence with the widowed Nadejda von Meck, whom he never met, and her financial support to him;and his death from cholera during an epidemic in St.Petersburg, from drinking unboiled water - an act so rash it has sometimes been called suicidal. But more important than his life is his music which, with its combination of the passionate and bombastic, the sublime and the banal, goes straight the heart of the human condition.

The "Festival Overture : The Year 1812" celebrates the defeat of Napoleon and the French Army in the winter campaign of 1812. It is the same chapter of history as that graphically chronicled by Leo Tolstoy in "War and Peace", which culminated in the Battle of Borodino, the Russian evacuation and burning of Moscow, and the consequential French retreat westwards in the depths of winter, which resulted in the loss of some 90% of Napoleon's army.

After a solemn introduction on the lower strings, the music gradually gains in animation, until after a climax a quiet section ensues. But this does not last, and a fast fugal passage builds up to a large climax, incorporating both Russian and French national anthems, with the Marsellaise prominent on the trumpets. This again gives way to calmer and more serene music. The same pattern is repeated a second time, until a huge descending scale passage, getting gradually slower as it gets lower, leads into the final peroration, in which the bells of celebration and victory salutes of cannon play full part.