The Year 1812, Festival Overture In E♭ Major, more commonly known as the 1812 Overture, is an overture written by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky to commemorate Russia's defense of its motherland against Napoleon's invading Grande Armée in 1812. The overture is best known for its climactic volley of cannon fire, ringing chimes, and brass fanfare finale.
Despite the song being written to celebrate the prowess of the Russian military, the song is often played during the USA's Independence Day.
Games
Alien Ambush (A8)
Battlezone (A26)
The song plays at the start of the game when you press Reset button. This is output to Television Interface Adaptor chip.
Slinky (C64)
Plays twice to lively fireworks as soon as a level is completed.
QBasic Nibbles (DOS)
Two arrangements of the same brief excerpt of the 1812 Overture are played in Nibbles, using QuickBasic MML on the PC Speaker. The lower and slower one is played at the title screen (itself re-used in QBasic Gorillas (DOS)) using the following statement (spaces in quotes added by VGMPF for legibility):
PLAY "MB T160 O1 L8 C D E D C D L4 E C C"
The higher and faster one plays upon level start:
PLAY "T160 O1 > L20 C D E D C D L10 E C C"
QBasic Gorillas (DOS)
A brief excerpt of the 1812 Overture is played at the title screen of QBasic Gorillas. The song was programmed using the MML of Quick BASIC's PLAY command and extracted from the source code. The song can be replayed with the following BASIC command:
PLAY "MB T160 O1 L8 C D E D C D L4 E C C"
The short tune is played through the PC Speaker.
Links
