Three Marches Militaires (Schubert)

The Three Marches Militaires, Op. 51, D. 733, are pieces in march form written for piano four-hands by Franz Schubert.

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".

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 (this is now Želiezovce in Slovakia). 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 on 7 August 1826, as Op. 51, by Anton Diabelli.

They are all in ternary form, with a central trio leading to a reprise of the main march.

Recordings of the original piano 4-hand version include those by Christoph Eschenbach and Justus Frantz, Radu Lupu and Daniel Barenboim, Robert Levin and Malcolm Bilson, Evgeny Kissin and James Levine and Artur Schnabel and Karl Ulrich Schnabel.

Messing, Scott. 2014. Marching to the Canon: The Life of Schubert's "Marche militaire". Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press. .

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