The Three ''Marches Militaires'', Op. 51, D. 733, are pieces in
march form written for
piano four-hands
Piano four hands (french: À quatre mains, german: Zu vier Händen, Vierhändig, it, a quattro mani) is a type of piano duet involving two players playing the same piano simultaneously. A duet with the players playing separate instruments is ...
by
Franz Schubert
Franz Peter Schubert (; 31 January 179719 November 1828) was an Austrian composer of the late Classical and early Romantic eras. Despite his short lifetime, Schubert left behind a vast ''oeuvre'', including more than 600 secular vocal wor ...
.
The first of the three is far more famous than the others. It is one of Schubert's most famous compositions, and it is often simply referred to as "Schubert's ''Marche militaire''".
Background
It is not certain when the ''Marches militaires'' were written: many scholars favour 1818 but some prefer alternative dates such as 1822 or 1824. It is known that they were written during Schubert's stay at Count Johann Karl Esterházy's summer home in Zseliz in
Hungary
Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia a ...
(this is now
Želiezovce
Želiezovce ( hu, Zselíz, (formerly) Zseliz (till 1895), Zeliz, Zeléz, german: Zelis (rare)) is a town in Slovakia in the Nitra Region in the Levice District, near the Hron river.
Districts
* Jarok ( hu, Nyitra-Ivánka)
* Karolína
* Mi ...
in
Slovakia
Slovakia (; sk, Slovensko ), officially the Slovak Republic ( sk, Slovenská republika, links=no ), is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the s ...
). He had accepted a job there as music teacher to the Count's daughters, and these and similar works were written for instructional purposes.
The ''Marches militaires'' were published in
Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
on 7 August 1826, as Op. 51, by
Anton Diabelli
Anton (or Antonio) Diabelli (5 September 17818 April 1858) was an Austrian music publisher, editor and composer. Best known in his time as a publisher, he is most familiar today as the composer of the waltz on which Ludwig van Beethoven wrote ...
.
They are all in
ternary form
Ternary form, sometimes called song form, is a three-part musical form consisting of an opening section (A), a following section (B) and then a repetition of the first section (A). It is usually schematized as A–B–A. Prominent examples includ ...
, with a central trio leading to a reprise of the main march.
March No. 1 in D major
*''Allegro vivace''. The trio is in G major.
* This march is one of Schubert's most famous melodies, and it has been arranged for full orchestra, military bands, and many different combinations of instruments.
* It has been
quoted in various other works, including
Igor Stravinsky
Igor Fyodorovich Stravinsky (6 April 1971) was a Russian composer, pianist and conductor, later of French (from 1934) and American (from 1945) citizenship. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential composers of the ...
's ''
Circus Polka
''Circus Polka: For a Young Elephant'' was written by Igor Stravinsky in 1942. He composed it for a ballet production that the choreographer George Balanchine did for Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus. The ballet was performed by fifty ...
'', and even in
Walt Disney
Walter Elias Disney (; December 5, 1901December 15, 1966) was an American animator, film producer and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the American animation industry, he introduced several developments in the production of cartoons. As a film p ...
's animated short ''
Santa's Workshop
Santa's Workshop is the legendary workshop where Santa Claus and his Christmas elf, elves are said to live and make the toys and presents given out at Christmas. The exact "location" of Santa's workshop varies depending upon local culture. There ...
''.
*
Franz Liszt
Franz Liszt, in modern usage ''Liszt Ferenc'' . Liszt's Hungarian passport spelled his given name as "Ferencz". An orthographic reform of the Hungarian language in 1922 (which was 36 years after Liszt's death) changed the letter "cz" to simpl ...
paraphrased March No. 1 for solo piano as ''Grand paraphrase de concert'', S.426a.
*
Carl Tausig
Karl Tausig (sometimes "Carl"; born Karol Tausig; 4 November 184117 July 1871) was a Polish virtuoso pianist, arranger and composer. He is generally regarded as Franz Liszt's most esteemed pupil, and one of the greatest pianists of all time.
L ...
also wrote a version for solo piano, in D-flat major, which has been recorded by pianists such as
Vladimir Horowitz,
Evgeny Kissin,
Josef Hofmann
Josef Casimir Hofmann (originally Józef Kazimierz Hofmann; January 20, 1876February 16, 1957) was a Polish-American pianist, composer, music teacher, and inventor.
Biography
Josef Hofmann was born in Podgórze (a district of Kraków), in Aus ...
,
György Cziffra
Christian Georges Cziffra (; born Cziffra Krisztián György; 5 November 192115 January 1994) was a Hungarian-French virtuoso pianist and composer. He is considered to be one of the greatest virtuoso pianists of the twentieth century. Among h ...
,
Alicia de Larrocha and
Leopold Godowsky.
In Popular Culture
* This march was used as theme music by the
Autolite company to promote its products, notably in a 1940 promotional film produced by the
Jam Handy organization, famous for its closing sequence, which featured
stop motion animation of the products marching past Autolite factories. An abbreviated version of this sequence was later used in television ads for Autolite, especially those on the 1950s CBS program ''
Suspense
Suspense is a state of mental uncertainty, anxiety, being undecided, or being doubtful. In a dramatic work, suspense is the anticipation of the outcome of a plot or of the solution to an uncertainty, puzzle, or mystery, particularly as it aff ...
'', which Autolite sponsored.
* An arrangement for
accordion
Accordions (from 19th-century German ''Akkordeon'', from ''Akkord''—"musical chord, concord of sounds") are a family of box-shaped musical instruments of the bellows-driven free-reed aerophone type (producing sound as air flows past a reed ...
was played as theme music for
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...
's 1982 dramatization of ''
A Small Town in Germany'' by
John le Carré
David John Moore Cornwell (19 October 193112 December 2020), better known by his pen name John le Carré ( ), was a British and Irish author, best known for his espionage novels, many of which were successfully adapted for film or television. ...
.
* This march is remixed for the
Ricoh 2A03 and used as Drill Man's stage theme in ''Rockman 4 Minus Infinity''.
* An excerpt of this song is featured as a background music in 1985 video game
''Challenger''.
* The march is used in the
GCE Ordinary Level (United Kingdom) for the Listening Comprehension portion of the examination.
March No. 2 in G major
* ''Allegro molto moderato''
March No. 3 in E major
* ''Allegro moderato''
Recordings
Recordings of the original piano 4-hand version include those by
Christoph Eschenbach and
Justus Frantz;
Radu Lupu and
Daniel Barenboim
Daniel Barenboim (; in he, דניאל בארנבוים, born 15 November 1942) is an Argentine-born classical pianist and conductor based in Berlin. He has been since 1992 General Music Director of the Berlin State Opera and "Staatskapellmeist ...
;
Robert Levin and
Malcolm Bilson;
Evgeny Kissin and
James Levine; and
Artur Schnabel and
Karl Ulrich Schnabel
Karl Ulrich Schnabel (August 6, 1909 – August 27, 2001) was an Austrian pianist. Schnabel was the son of pianist Artur Schnabel and operatic contralto and lieder singer Therese Behr and elder brother of the American actor Stefan Schnabel. An i ...
. The composition appears in the 1932 shortfilm ''
Santa's Workshop
Santa's Workshop is the legendary workshop where Santa Claus and his Christmas elf, elves are said to live and make the toys and presents given out at Christmas. The exact "location" of Santa's workshop varies depending upon local culture. There ...
'' and there are also Christmas-lyrics in Swedish, as."Önskelistan" ("the Wishlist") written by
Gunlis Österberg.,
also known as "Vi vill ha skridskor, en häst och en rymdraket" ("We want iceskates, a horse and a rocket-spacecraft").
References
; Notes
;Sources
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External links
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{{Authority control
Piano music by Franz Schubert
Compositions for piano four-hands
Austrian military marches
1818 compositions
Compositions in D major
Compositions in G major
Compositions in E-flat major