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&--&E Stereo "360 SOUND" represents the ultimate in tape machines engineered and built co Columbia’s own specifications. The formed on editing consoles hand-tooled by Columbia’s engineering staff to STEREO listening enjoyment. Every aspect of recording microphones used are chosen for their individual sound properties depending accommodate any number of channels. The transfer of master tape to master "360 SOUND" activity has been carefully supervised by Colum¬ upon the orchestration, the artist and the concept of the producer of the record¬ lacquer is made via a Westrex or Ortofon cutter installed on a Scully lathe bia’s engineers and craftsmen, using the very ing. Some of the microphones are: the Sony C37A; Telefunken-Neumann’s U67; equipped with automatic variable pitch and electronic depth controls. Before latest electronic equipment. Stereo "360 SOUND" creates the effect of surround¬ U47; M49B; KM54A; KM56; the AKG’s C60, C12 and Electro Voice 655C. Only production is begun, a master pressing is compared to the final tape (A-B ing the listener with glorious, true-to-life active sound. It is as if one were high-output tape affording maximum signal to noise ratio is used. Such tape, of checked). It is only after the recording has passed this critical test that Colum¬ sitting in the first row center at an actual performance. great tensile strength and thickness, additionally aids in the elimination of bia’s engineers give the final approval for manufacture, secure in the knowledge Columbia’s studios have been designed with uniform sound characteristics and print-through and reduction of distortion and hiss. that each Stereo "360 SOUND" disc will have the same full-bodied, multi¬ are equipped with sixteen-channel consoles and custom-calibrated multi-track The reduction of the original multi-track tape to the final master tape is per¬ dimensional sound as that originally recorded in the studio.

Library of Congress catalog card number R 63-1243 applies to this record.

Stereo—MS 6477 Monaural—ML 5877 TCHAIKOVSKY: CAPRICCIO1TAL1EN, OP. 45 MARCHE SLAVE, OP 31 1812 OVERTURE

New York Philharmonic, Leonard Bernstein, Conductor Produced by John McClure and Howard Scott

That Tchaikovsky was in love with the folk music of sumed Tchaikovsky must have first heard from his room first time in the Winter Palace on December 25 of that his country is evident when one hears his two most na¬ at the Hotel Constanzi overlooking the barracks of the year on the occasion of the blessing of the colors. The tionalistic works, the Marche Slave and the 1812 Over¬ Royal Cuirassiers, where the call is sounded nightly in author was further rewarded by the Czar with the gift of ture■. But he was also a cosmopolitan who relished folk the barracks yards. a gold snuff box topped with diamonds and the permis¬ music wherever he found it. Thus the Capriccio Italien is sion to add the words "God Save the Czar" to his family crest. as characteristically Italian as the other works in this MARCHE SLAVE, OP. 31 album are Russian. Tchaikovsky's best-known march composition, the 1812 OVERTURE In a letter to his patroness, Mme. von Meek (March Marche Slave, was composed for and titled in honor of On September 7, 1812, Napoleon's Grand Army, driv¬ 1878), Tchaikovsky wrote: "As regards the Russian the Serbian heroes of the Turko-Serbian war, then in ing toward Moscow, reached the town of Borodino and element in my works, I may tell you that not infrequently progress, and was presented at a benefit concert to raise entered combat with the Russian forces under General I begin a composition with the intention of introducing funds for those soldiers. Kutuzov. A long and costly battle ensued, in which some¬ some folk melody into it. Sometimes it comes of its own It is based largely on the Russian anthem God Save the thing like eighty thousand casualties occurred. The result accord, unbidden.... As to this national element in my Czar, and on folk tunes of Slavonic and Serbian origin, was indecisive. The Russian forces withdrew beyond work, its affinity with the folksongs in some of my mel¬ mainly the Serbian folksong Sunce varko no fijas jednako Moscow and allowed the French to enter the city, but odies and harmonies comes from my having spent my —"Come, my dearest, why so sad this morning?" Napoleon's hard-won prize was hardly occupied before childhood in the country, and, from my earliest years, The work is in three sections, the first a funeral hymn it went up in flames. It is not known how the fire began. having been impregnated with the characteristic beauty of slightly oriental cast, the final section a song of victory The governor general of Moscow, Rostopchin, denied the of our Russian folk music. I am passionately fond of the combining all the musical elements. It is in the second charge of having commanded the city to be fired to drive national element in all its varied expressions. In a word, section that the Russian national anthem is brought for¬ out the French, but it was no doubt fanned by the fanatic I am Russian in the fullest sense of the word." ward. patriots who had remained in the city during the occupa¬ The birth of this Czarist hymn has been recounted by tion. Built almost entirely of wood, virtually the entire CAPRICCIO ITALIEN, OP. 45 its author, Alexis Feodorovich Lvov, as follows: "In 1833, city was consumed, leaving only the great stone churches The Capriccio Italien was composed in 1880 when I accompanied the Emperor Nicholas during his travels and palaces. With his supply line overextended and his Tchaikovsky was touring Italy. It was first performed in in Prussia and Austria. When we had returned to Russia prospective winter quarters destroyed, Bonaparte was Moscow in the same year, on December 18th, and its I was informed that the sovereign regretted that we forced to begin the ruinous retreat October 19, 1812. sunny atmosphere and southern exuberance must have Russians had no national anthem of our own and that, as What strength remained in his decimated forces was warmed the bones and cheered the hearts of Muscovites he was tired of the English tune which had filled the gap finally destroyed by the Russian winter and guerrilla war gathered in a concert hall so far from Italy in the dead for so many years, he wished me to see whether I could parties. of winter. not compose a Russian hymn. Tchaikovsky wrote his 1812 Overture for a program During the three months Tchaikovsky was in Rome, "The problem appeared to me to be an extremely diffi¬ that was to be part of a festival commemorating the above he became excited by street songs he heard and the many cult and serious one. When I recalled the imposing British events. Suggested to him by Nicholas Rubinstein in the published volumes of folk music he found at hand. He national anthem God Save the King, the very original spring of 1880, the work was to be performed in the quickly wrote to Mme. von Meek that he was sketching French one, and the really touching Austrian hymn, I felt public square before the Temple of Christ in Moscow. an Italian fantasy for orchestra. "Thanks to the charming and appreciated the necessity of writing something big, The festival performance did not occur, however, and the themes, some of which I have taken from collections and strong, and moving; something national that should re¬ work was first presented on August 20,1882, a few weeks some of which I have heard in the streets, this work will sound through a church as well as through the ranks of short of the seventieth anniversary of the burning of be effective." an army; something that could be taken up by a huge Moscow. "Effective" is a good adjective for the final product. multitude and be within the reach of every man, from the The composer appropriately selected for his themes the The many folk tunes, the tempo changes, the coloristic dunce to the scholar. . . ." old Russian hymn, God Preserve Thy People, Russian touches, all add up to an elegant open-air piece. Not the When the tune was written, and words set to it, it was folksongs, the Marseillaise, and finally the Russian Na¬ least of these elements is the bugle call heard in the duly played for the Czar, who pronounced it "superb," tional Hymn, sounding out in triumph amid the jubilant trumpet passage of the introduction, which it is pre¬ had it adopted officially for the army and played for the peal of the bells of the city.

The cannon shots in the 1812 Overture are by Carroll Musical Instrument Service.

THE SELECTIONS—PUBLIC DOMAIN—ARE FOLLOWED BY THEIR TIMINGS SIDE I CAPRICCIO ITALIEN, Op. 45 .16:00 SIDE II 1812 OVERTURE. 15:20 MARCHE SLAVE, Op. 31. . .9:30

25:35

COVER ART: ROSAMOND BERG © COLUMBIA RECORDS 1963/ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ® "COLUMBIA". "MASTERWORKS".gg MARCAS REG. PRINTED IN U S A. w

BERNSTEIN CONDUCTS TCHAIKOVSKY New York Philharmonic LEONARD BERNSTEIN. Conductor MS 6477 NONBREAKABLE

TCHAIKOVSKY: 1812 OVERTURE

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