Every Fourth of July, the Boston Pops concert on the Esplanade ends with a bang. And it isn't just fireworks. The high point of the 1812 Overture includes firing cannons. The piece is about Russia's ...

For many U.S. symphony orchestras and their audiences, it's just not the Fourth of July without Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky's rip-roaring, bell-ringing, cannon-firing "1812 Overture." Continuing its ...

Somehow, over the past half-century and with hardly anyone noticing, the 19th century Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky has become as integral to the Fourth of July as George Washington and ...

A cartoon hangs on a wall in the offices of the Virginia Symphony Orchestra. It shows a violinist entering a door marked “1812 Overture Rehearsals.” Behind him follows a percussionist, dragging a ...