Ragtime alla Turca for Five Pianos

Details

“Ragtime alla Turca” for five pianos by Greg Anderson, based on Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Rondo “Alla turca,” K. 331 / Full score (no individual parts) / Difficulty: Advanced / Duration: 4 minutes / Pages: 30 / Copyright: 2008 / Work number: 032.1

Variants available for 2 pianos and 5 pianos.

Program Notes

As Richard Goldman once observed, “It must never be forgotten that in military music noise is a primary object.”

In his “Rondo alla turca” (Piano Sonata in A major, K. 331), Mozart borrowed key traits from Ottoman military music—the classic rhythm (long, long, short, short, long…), a vacillation between major and minor, and, above all, a predilection for noise. Far from a hushed concert-hall showpiece, he wrote it for informal home performance, where pianists would have immediately recognized the “Turkish” rhythms and enlivened them with the Jannisary stops common to pianos of the day—foot pedals that would strike cymbals and drums inside the piano. (Alternatively, the kids could get out the pots and pans.)

Modern ears, however, no longer startle at these once‑exotic sounds: Mozart’s “Rondo alla turca” now crops up in beginner recitals and cartoon scores, and piano makers long ago dropped the Janissary stops. “Ragtime alla turca” is my attempt to reanimate the music’s spirit in the 21st century by casting Mozart’s exuberant gestures through a distorted lens of American ragtime—with unexpected 5/8 detours, melodies stacked atop one another, and dizzying virtuoso licks to keep you guessing.

While my version diverges freely from Mozart’s exact notes, my aim is clear: to preserve the music’s sense of noisemaking, revelry, and surprise. As Franz Liszt aptly put it, “Some exactitudes are the equivalent of infidelities.”

— Greg Anderson

Demo Video

This performance at two pianos is not the same as the five-piano version available here, but it’s similar and offered to give a sense of the arrangement.

Variants Available