In his 1966 Deutsche Grammophon recording, Herbert von Karajan scored the first 02'43" (or 36 bars) for voices instead of strings at the start and the subsequent dialogue between strings and woodwind, adding the Russian Orthodox plainchant God Preserve Thy People text to the melody and slightly rearranging the texture to suit voices a capella rather than instruments.

Two years later, the American conductor Igor Buketoff, son of a Russian Orthodox priest, went a stage further on his RCA Victrola recording with the New Philharmonia Orchestra.

[7] On 7 September 1812, at Borodino, 120 km (75 mi) west of Moscow, Napoleon's forces met those of General Mikhail Kutuzov in a concerted stand made by Russia against the seemingly invincible French Army.

[8] With resources depleted and supply lines overextended, Napoleon's weakened forces moved into Moscow, which they occupied with no delegation to receive the conquerors.

To make things worse, 48 hours after Napoleon's entry to the Russian city on 14 September 1812, three quarters of Moscow was burned to the ground.

Beginning on 19 October and lasting well into December, the French Army faced several overwhelming obstacles on its long retreat: famine, typhus, freezing temperatures, harassing cossacks, and Russian forces barring the way out of the country.

Abandoned by Napoleon in November, the Grande Armée was reduced to one-tenth of its original size by the time it reached Poland and relative safety.

[12] Meanwhile, Tchaikovsky complained to his patron Nadezhda von Meck that he was "... not a conductor of festival pieces," and that the Overture would be "... very loud and noisy, but [without] artistic merit, because I wrote it without warmth and without love."

[21] The piece begins with the simple, plaintive Russian melody of the Eastern Orthodox Troparion of the Holy Cross (also known as "O Lord, Save Thy People") played by four cellos and two violas.

[23] Then, the melody of "La Marseillaise" is heard competing against Russian folk music, representing the two armies fighting each other as the French approached Moscow.

[25] "Chant du départ", nicknamed "the brother of the Marseillaise" by French Republican soldiers, served as the official anthem of Napoleon's regime.

"[27][28] By including this hymn in the piece, Tchaikovsky is suggesting that God granted the Orthodox Russians victory over the French imperial troops.

In a live performance, the logistics of safety and precision in placement of the shots require either well-drilled military crews using modern cannons, or the use of sixteen pieces of muzzle-loading artillery, since any reloading schemes, to attain the sixteen shots, or even a semblance of them, in the two-minute time span involved, makes safety and precision impossible with 1800s artillery.

[31] The earliest traceable orchestral recording, which does not include the shots and features no percussion apart from bells, was by the Royal Albert Hall Orchestra conducted by Landon Ronald, and issued by His Master's Voice on three 12-inch 78-rpm sides in 1916.

A stereophonic version was recorded on 5 April 1958, using the bells of the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Carillon, at Riverside Church.

On this Mercury Living Presence Stereo recording, the spoken commentary was also given by Deems Taylor and the 1812 was coupled with Tchaikovsky's Capriccio Italien.

Later editions coupled the 1812 Overture with Dorati's recording of Beethoven's Wellington's Victory, which featured the London Symphony Orchestra and real cannon.

[35] The Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Herbert Von Karajan, and the Don Cossacks Choir recorded the piece in 1967 for Deutsche Grammophon.

[36] In 1971, CBS released a recording[37] with the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted by Eugene Ormandy, also featuring the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, the Valley Forge Military Academy band and real artillery shots.

British rock drummer Cozy Powell sampled the overture at the end of the track "Over The Top" in his eponymous 1979 studio album.

Only the best and most fine-tuned allowed the cannon shots to be played properly (an accompanying warning for users not to destroy their audio equipment was included with the record).

[41] In 1990, during a worldwide celebration of the 150th anniversary of Tchaikovsky's birth, the Overture was recorded in the city of his youth by the Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra using 16 muzzleloading cannons fired live as written in the 1880 score.

[42][43] The Texan band "The Invincible Czars" released a rock version of 1812 Overture for the bicentennial of the Battle of Borodino in September 2012.

[44] The band had already debuted their arrangement of the piece at the 20th annual OK Mozart classical music festival at Bartlesville, Oklahoma, with professional orchestra musicians, in June 2009, complete with fireworks at the finale.