FORM IN MUSIC

New Zealand Listener, Volume 17, Issue 435, 24 October 1947, Page 18

FORM IN MUSIC

THE ninth of a series of briet articles by

BESSIE

POLLARD

, Mus, Bac.,

on "form tn Music. ihese articies are closély related fo a series Of programmes on the same topic now being heard from 2YC on Friday evenings. Each of our articles is illustrated by a tew bars of the music under 5 discussion,

9. The March ‘HE March arose as a definite musical form when Jean Baptiste Lulh, court musician to Louis XIV. of France, ineluded Marches in his Operas. Later Handel adopted this scheme -we all know his "Dead March" from Saul; and the famous March from Scipio, Mozart also used it most competently, introducing the military,pattern in his Marriage of Figaro and the ritual type in The Magic Flute. Marches are not solely military. There are some for all occasions-those for dancing; for voices, and instruments; for coronations and funerals; processions and weddings and even for the circus. Who can ever forget the profoundly moving Funeral March in Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony? Some of us, too, like to think of that great passage from the finale of his Ninth Symphony as a

March on the highest conceptual level, impelling mankind forward to a true "Liberty, Equality and Fraternity." The March is seemingly illimitable in its versatility. What a contrast is afforded ‘by the sublimated grief in Chopin’s Funeral March (from the Piano Sonata in B Flat Minor). as compared with the bizarre caprice in the

"March to the Scaffold" from Berlioz’s "Fantastic Symphony"; or the unashamed imperialism in Elgar’s "Pomp and Circumstance" Marches compared with the universal doctrine of dauntless heroism expressed in that ageless marching song "La Marseillaise." * Eighteenth Century -composers competed with each other to produce "Turkish Marches." Appropriate instruments of pefcussion such as bass drums, triangles, cymbals, and even the Turkish "crescent," were pressed into service to suggest the local colour of the martial airs of the Janissaries, the Turkish. Sultan’s personal retinue. Haydn exploits this "Turkish" effect in his "Military" Symphony; Mozart in his Piano Sonata in A ("Rondo alla Turca"); Beethoven

in his March from the Ruins of Athens, and the Piano Variations, Op. 76. The far-reaching developments. of Grand Opera in the 19th Century showed full utilisation of arresting effects with the inclusion of the symphonic March, by such composers as Meyerbeer (The Prophet); Verdi (Aida), and Wagner (The Mastersingets of Nuremburg). Like the Minuet and Scherzo, the March has that contrasting, balancing central episode called the "trio." The whole composition is cast in a three-part or "ternary"? form-"MARCH-Trio-MARCH repeated." THE MARCH-the ninth of the series FORM IN MUSIC-will be heard from Station 2YC at 9.30 p.m. on Friday, October 31.