This entire MUSIC 101 concept germinated a few months ago, when I was listening to Hawaii Public Radio. They were playing a piece of music which is probably familiar to you, even if you never bought a classical record, or attended a symphony concert. It was the "1812 Overture" by Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky, complete with cannons, and I remembered several of the times that I heard this piece in live performance.

Once was with the Boston Symphony Orchestra at their summer home in Tanglewood, Massachusetts. The BSO is a wonderful orchestra, and this was a stirring rendition of the piece. But the cannon they had available was a tiny affair, hardly making as much noise as a firecracker. I much prefer the performance I attended at the bandshell on the Potomac River, behind the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

That performance had additional brass from a Marine Corps drum & bugle company, and six Howitzer cannons manned by the U.S. Army, three on either side of the shell, their barrels aimed out over the Potomac.

As I listened to the performance on the radio, that performance in Washington was vividly brought to mind, and it saddened me to think that there are people in this wealthy nation of ours, who will probably go to their graves, never having heard the "1812 Overture" performed live by a major symphony with major artillery.

What in this world can compare to the experience? Surely, it is worth the drive, and whatever it costs for a ticket, to have that memory in your brain, on-call, so to speak, anytime you hear the piece on the radio, or even in a TV commercial. For me, it was one of those spectacular and amusing experiences that just doesn't fade into the past.

The piece builds in intensity from its quiet and even mournful opening (it is Russian music, after all, the Russian hymn - God Preserve Thy People) to an exciting central passage that eases off, before building again to its explosive climax. I remember at the concert on the Potomac, that a good number of small boats had assembled along the banks of the river to hear the evening program.

At that point in Tchaikovsky's piece where the cannons add their voices to the score (Russia 10, Napoleon 0), harmlessly firing their powder charges across the river, motors could be heard in the background, the boaters sheepishly backing away from the artillery barrage.

And, that's what it's all about. THAT'S MUSIC!

Oh sure, there are the purists who will insist that Tchaikovsky's overture is just a piece of fluff. Not ranking in significance with such mighty works as Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, or Bach's St. Matthew Passion or any symphony by Mozart or Mahler. Or an opera by Verdi or Puccini.

Well, don't listen to those guys. I am familiar with and love all those pieces of music, too. But when I hear them on the radio, they rarely bring to mind a specific concert performance. And they don't produce the huge smile that the memory of those boats triggers.

BRAHMS

BEETHOVEN