Rhodri Marsden's Interesting Objects: The 1812 Overture cannon

* Local roads were closed, ambulances were on standby. Microphones, suspended between trees, were ready to capture the blast of a Napoleonic cannon borrowed from a military academy. The fifth blast was deemed to be a "take"; the tape was taken back to the studio and dubbed 16 times into a recording of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture by the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra. This recording, made in 1954, was the first one to follow the composer's instructions to the letter.