MUSIC
Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture Brings Back Memories
“The memory of that night at the Capitol is fresh every time I think of it.”
I’m grateful to my parents for an early introduction to classical music. When Mom took us to church, Dad stayed home, reading the newspaper and listening to classical music. I’ve written a little about that chapter of my life here . Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture was on one of these albums.
Of the two other memories associated with this piece of music, one occurred in high school and the other while we were living in the Midway in St. Paul after our return from Mexico in 1982 and before our move to Forest Lake in 1984.
One of the teachers who made an impact on me when I was in school was Mr. Harris, my senior year English teacher. I have several meaningful memories from his class, but for now we’ll stick to our theme, the 1812 Overture, which had been written to commemorate Russia’s confrontation with Napoleon in that year.
What he did was have us listen to this piece of music and then write a story inspired by what we heard. Disney, of course, did visual storytelling inspired by classical music in his film Fantasia. Ours was simply a writing exercise with a musical prompt. For people with imagination this kind of thing is fun.
