From cannon fires in Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture to thunderstorms in An Alpine Symphony by Strauss, we look at how the Symphony Orchestra of India brings alive a variety of sounds using unsuspecting instruments.
By Nidhi Lodaya
In June 1812, the then French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte embarked on a battle against former ally Russia. The campaign however was fraught with challenges. By the end of the year, it was a piece to commemorate the Russian victory, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky wrote a 15-minute piece, the 1812 Overture, “Solemn Overture”, which gained fame for a powerful climax of 16 cannon fires—to depict the artillery fire of the Battle of Borodino which resulted in heavy casualties on both sides, ultimately halting Napoleon’s advance.
While Tchaikovsky himself hated the piece—calling it “very loud and noisy and completely without artistic merit”—it remains to this day one of his most popular works. Ironically, this Russian piece lends itself as a staple during Independence Day celebrations in the US as fireworks light up the July skies. Despite the precision and expertise required to perform this theatrical piece, or perhaps because of it, this masterpiece remains one of the most sought-after compositions by orchestras worldwide. The visual spectacle offered by the cannon or artillery fire during open-air concerts is also a major attraction.
But, for the best effect, the timing has to be perfect. The fuse needs to be lit to the correct length and at just the right time, so that the blast occurs at the precise beat. And while one might still master the timing, procuring cannons and artillery and getting permissions to fire them safely in open air are challenges that orchestras around the world have navigated by adopting other methods to recreate the loud burst of sound as closely as possible to the original. In 2023, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra used pyrotechnics to replicate the sound. Across the world, double bass drums or a gong with a sledgehammer, or a mallet hammer have been employed for a powerful sound, akin to the hammer blows of the final movement of Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 6, which are also known as the ‘Mahler Hammer’.
This August, the Symphony Orchestra of India (SOI) will conclude the Autumn 2026 Season with a literal bang with Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture. Igor Avdeev, percussionist at the SOI and percussion teacher at the SOI Music Academy, says, “To recreate the cannon fire sound, orchestras can either use a big bass drum or pre-recorded music.” He admits that personally he prefers the actual cannon fire since it is the authentic version. “Western classical music is meant to be felt and experienced live. While the recorded sound would be closest to the original composition, using it may not always be precise, and there is a possibility that it may not work at the time and miss the beat. In that sense, recreating the sound with percussion would be the most apt, and this way, the audience can feel the vibration since everything is happening live,” explains Avdeev, adding that having the drum offstage would be more suitable, where the audience cannot see it, but they will definitely hear it. Also, that’s how the impact of the cannon fire should be felt—through the vibrations. “It is not a visual thing, but rather a sound effect,” he says.
The offstage performance
This is not the first time the SOI has recreated sounds with an ingenious use of instruments or performed certain parts offstage. During its Spring Season earlier this year, the orchestra performed Gustav Holst’s The Planets, which featured an offstage female chorus by Living Voices Mumbai in the final movement of the suite that paints a musical portrait of ‘Neptune, the Mystic’. “Sometimes we have offstage horns and choirs which are usually written in the score, and these instruments are played backstage because the audience is supposed to feel that the music is coming from afar,” explains Bianca Mendonca, General Manager – Symphony Orchestra of India & Western Classical Music. Yet, positioning a musician offstage has its own set of technicalities. “You need to have an offstage monitor so that the musicians can watch the conductor, in order not to miss the cues. Usually, for an offstage chorus, it is highly recommended to have a conductor backstage to give cues,” adds Mendonca.
The upcoming season includes Richard Strauss’s Also sprach Zarathustra, a tone poem, which requires a pipe or church organ. “There is a pipe organ installed at the Tata Theatre,” says Mendonca. “But since we cannot move it and we have the season concerts at the Jamshed Bhabha Theatre, we will be loaning the church organ owned by Furtados, which sits at the St. Thomas’ Cathedral, Fort,” she adds.
Mendonca credits the orchestra’s percussion section for innovating different sounds. For its Spring 2018 Season, the SOI played An Alpine Symphony by Strauss that depicts an 11-hour ascent of an Alpine mountain, during which the hiker encounters a momentous storm. To replicate the roaring and thundering of the storm, a metal sheet, also known as a lastra, was struck with a mallet. The percussionists also built a cylindrical wind machine, which was used on stage to recreate other sounds of nature in this symphony.
A workshop of sounds
Sounds of nature and cannon fire, among others, can be recreated using a variety of unsuspecting objects. In the SOI Music Academy’s percussion classroom, Avdeev shows this writer the tubular bells (a tuned percussion instrument made of suspended metal tubes) which are often used as a replacement for church bells, the timpani (a large percussion instrument, also known as kettledrums), rainsticks, wind chimes and other percussion instruments. He explains how something as basic as a whistle is used in Leonard Bernstein’s West Side Story. Or, that placing cymbals on top of a timpani creates a mildly thunderous sound often used by modern composers while the sound of horses galloping on a marshy land can be recreated by using a soft mallet on the timpani. In Giuseppe Verdi’s famous “Anvil Chorus” from his 1853 opera Il trovatore, the sound of the gypsies at work can be made by hitting a hammer on a metal anvil.
Avdeev opens another drawer and takes out a warbler, also known as the songbird instrument, usually made out of ceramic. It is a small hand-held whistle resembling a bird, not just in appearance but also in the sound it produces after pouring some water inside it. He says that the bird sound in Giacomo Puccini’s Madama Butterfly can be achieved with this instrument. The same songbird whistle was also used by the SOI in December 2025 when they performed Franz Joseph Haydn’s The Toy Symphony at an NCPA@ThePark concert. For this already playful work, the orchestra used a traditional Thai bamboo bird flute, which has a sweet, melodious sound like a bird. Avdeev’s percussion duties for this symphony included a tiny pink children’s drum around his neck, which he played with plastic drumsticks. Along with fellow percussionist Roshan Singh Chhabra, Avdeev says they can create a sound from any percussion instrument to meet what the conductor has in mind.
Eventually that sound may last just for a fraction of a minute or be one small part of a piece, but the way these instruments can be moulded to create something as close to the original—birds chirping, thunder, the gush of the wind, a storm brewing, rain, the galloping of horses, cannon fires and more—one cannot but appreciate the ingenuity of musicians, their craftsmanship, and the sheer hours of knowing their instruments.
This article was originally published in the August 2026 issue of ON Stage.
