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Piano sheet music for kids · Classical · Level 6: Moving on
Rondo alla Turca
Free beginner piano sheet music: A minor, 2/4, 16 bars and a pickup. Press Play to hear it on a real piano, slow it down, or hear one hand at a time; click any note to start from there; print it for the music stand.
About this arrangement
The “Turkish” finale of Mozart’s Piano Sonata K. 331 (around 1783), which imitates a Turkish military band. It starts in A minor, Mozart’s own key, with a pickup of four semiquavers (sixteenth notes), B A G sharp A, that curl round the A below middle C. The right hand plays the same little curl higher and higher, up to the C above middle C, so the hand travels. The left hand follows Mozart’s pattern: a bass note and repeated chords in quavers (eighth notes). Here are his first eight bars, then the eight that round off the next section, without the middle part in C major; his grace notes, the right hand’s added thirds and a trill are left out.
Practice tip: Practise the four-note curl, B A G sharp A, until it is quick and even, using the same fingers each time. Keep the left hand’s repeated chords short and light so the right hand can dance over them.
A short history
Mozart wrote his Piano Sonata No. 11 in A major, K. 331, around 1783, and it was published in Vienna by Artaria in 1784. Its last movement is marked “Alla turca”, in the Turkish style, and it has become one of his best-known piano pieces, often called the Turkish March.
In Mozart’s Vienna, Turkish military music was a fashion. The bands of the Ottoman army, with their drums, cymbals and triangles, had made a strong impression in Europe, and composers imitated their stamp and jingle; Mozart did the same in his opera The Abduction from the Seraglio (1782). Some pianos of the time even had a “Turkish” pedal that worked a drum and bells inside the instrument.
In 2014 a librarian in Budapest found four pages of Mozart’s own manuscript of the sonata, which had been thought lost.
Quick facts
- Tune
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, c. 1783
- Key
- A minor
- Time signature
- 2/4
- Length
- 16 bars and a pickup
- Tempo
- Allegretto, crotchet = 88
- Difficulty
- Level 6: Moving on (piece 186 of 201)
- Type
- Classical
- Hands
- Both: melody in the right hand, chords in the left
- Copyright
- Public domain tune; arrangement by Digital Greenhouse, free for personal and classroom use
Questions and answers
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