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Fireworks!

By Mark Chilla
Published September 23, 2019 at 3:54 PM EDT

A Fourth of July Ether Game special, all about musical  FIREWORKS! It's an incendiary show certain to get you bursting with delight. Did you know...

  • The 1812 Overture by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky is a favorite at American Fourth of July fireworks celebrations, despite being written about a French and Russian battle!

  • George Frideric Handel's Music For The Royal Fireworks was written to celebrate the end of the War of Austrian Succession. At its premiere, there were thunderstorms, only some of the fireworks actually went off, and the scaffolding caught on fire!

  • Igor Stravinsky's early work Fireworks was the career that jump-started his career. Sergei Diaghilev was in the audience at the premiere, and later commissioned Stravinsky to write ballets like Rite Of Spring and Firebird.

  • Fireworks play a role in the plot of Ariadne Auf Naxos by Richard Strauss, a show about an "opera within an opera." An opera company and commedia dell'arte troupe are forced to perform at their dinner party at the same time, because the host didn't want to delay a scheduled fireworks display.

    • See the full playlist below: