Quoted: I figger, why not, instead of hundreds of topics, create a single little topic for musical type questions. Got a musical type question? Ask it.
My question:
How many cannons are called for in the 1812 overture? I hear eleven shots during the ending, but I don't know if they reload the earlier ones or just use unfired ones. Or is the number of cannons left up to the conductor?
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You don't understand...EVERYTHING is up to the conductor.
What's the difference between God and a conductor?
God knows He's not a conductor.
What do do with a horn player that can't play?
Give him two sticks, put him in the back, and call him a percussionist.
What do you do if he can't do that?
Take away one of the sticks, put him up front, and call him a conductor.
I don't believe that in Tchaikovsky's time self-loading artillery had been invented yet. I doubt it's spelled out in the score (just like there's no specification of how many of each instruments to have, so long as each part is covered and can be heard). It's probably one cannon per shot, unless there's a long enough break between some shots to allow reloading. OTOH, it's a blank charge (don't need cannonballs sailing into the audience), so it might not take that much time to load.
If I was the conductor, I'd ask the guys with the cannons,
"Can you fire this many shots in this time? If not, can we get more cannons?"
Wait, that's wrong. I wouldn't ask that.
I'd ask, "Can we get a battleship in here?" More big boom.