2014 Term 1, Week 9: Mozart's Turkish March - Rondo alla Turk

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was born on January 27th 1756 and died on December 5th 1791, at age 35.  He was born in Salzburg in Austria, where his father, Leopold, was also a musician and composer.

Wolfgang's family called him Wolferl. He was called a child prodigy which means he could do something extremely clever at a very young age. He composed his first piece of music when he was just 5 years old. He was 7 when his first music was published, and when he was 12 he had written his first opera. He was an accomplished violinist and pianist by the age of 6, and he and his sister Maria Anna (called Nanner by her family) travelled around Europe giving concerts and even performing for royalty. Nanner was a very clever musician and composer herself, but she stopped travelling and giving concerts once she reached marrying age.

When he was older, Mozart moved to Vienna to earn a living as a composer and pianist.  He was used to being a famous child musician and having a great fuss of him, so it was difficult for him to settle to being an adult performer and not the centre of attention anymore - even though he was still a musical genius.

Mozart married Constanze Weber in 1782. They had six children, but only two survived past infancy. He earnt a lot of money in his life time but wasted it and ended up dying of kidney disease at 35 years old. He was buried in a common grave with no special ceremony.

Mozart composed an enormous amount of music in his short life. It would take over 8 days to play all his music without stopping. He also composed in a wide range of musical forms, such as operas, symphonies, concertos, masses, and chamber music.


This week's music is called: Turkish Rondo from Piano Sonata in A, K. 331. It's also known as Mozart's Turkish March of Rondo alla Turk.

Here's a version  of it on the  glass harp (glasses of water filled with water). This musician uses sticks instead of wet fingers to achieve his special sound. This piece uses an orchestral backing track.

Here's two people playing musical glasses with no accompaniment.

Here is an orchestra dressed in the clothes of Mozart's time. How many instruments can you name? 

This group is a Russian group called  Soprano 10 and they play violins as well as sing Rondo a la Turque.

This woman plays a jazz version on some of the 50 pianos around the streets of London during a festival.

Here's a jazz version played by a guitarist.

Air guitar time!

Here's the drumming video which we seem to be able to find for most of our music choices.  How many drums and cymbals can you count?

And here's David Garrett playing Rondo alla Turk with  a modern orchestral backing.

This is a clever - and fun - version of the music made by recording men singing different notes then using each note to represent a key on the piano. Which keys are used the most and which are hardly used at all?  At the end, you will hear the two makers of this video talking in Spanish.

Here's a music map of Rondo alla Turk. Can you see a pattern? 

Try this different listening map and see if you can follow it. It shows the rondo form of music. It comes from this teacher's music blog.

This is a powerpoint showing the rhythm pattern of the music in each theme of the rondo. Can you keep up while you are following it?  

This shows you what the music looks like if you were reading it while playing the piano.  

And this one is just a little crazy - and funny. No animals were harmed in the making of this video. 

Here is a video of a violinist and a pianist having a bit of fun with this piece of music at a concert in the Netherlands. The pianist wants to change the key from a minor key to a major key. 

Here are two people playing the this music on the one guitar at a concert in Poland.

Here's very fast song version of the rondo.

Here's the biggest piano keyboard you may have seen.

A 5-year-old boy plays this on the piano.

This is what it looks like when you are playing the piano. Look for the ascending and descending notes. 

And for the adults: This is the group called Beethoven's Wig singing a song to the tune of Ronda alla Turca. It's all about the Mozart effect - where children are supposed to  be smarter if they listen to a lot of Mozart. This is

Here's a game you can play while learning more about Mozart.

This is an interesting site where you can learn a lot more about Mozart.