Turkish March

The Anacrouse collection offers pianists, beginners and advanced alike, a wide choice of classical works from the Renaissance to the present day. It brings together major works of the repertoire as well as rarer pieces, and also offers transcriptions for piano solo or four hands, selected for their musical and educational interest. Each score, available individually, benefits from careful editorial work: a rigorously established musical text, clear and legible engraving, accompanied by a short biography of the composer and a note on the work.

The “Turkish March” (Rondo alla Turca), third movement of the Sonata in A major, K. 331, is without doubt one of the most jubilant and famous pieces by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. A stimulating technical challenge, it allows work on finger velocity, precision of articulated playing and rhythmic regularity. It is an essential work for developing brilliant playing and the clarity of execution typical of the Viennese classical style.

Composed around 1783, this piece belongs to the fashion for “Orientalism” that fascinated Vienna at the end of the 18th century. Mozart brilliantly imitates the sounds of Turkish Janissary military bands, using percussion effects rendered at the keyboard by marked chords, flourishes and doubled octaves, evoking the crash of the cymbals and drums of the time.