Talk:Piano Sonata No. 11 (Mozart)

Movement Title
I just changed "Minuetto" and "Marcia alla Turca" back to "Menuetto" and "Rondo alla Turca", which is how it was before and how it is in my version of the sheet music. However, my edition isn't a great one, and if there's an Urtext or something which gives "Minuetto" and "Marcia", then that's what we should say, of course (though probably with a note that "Rondo", while common, is actually wrong). --Camembert

WRONG.... the rondo is the third movmt so it should be called "Rondo Alla Turka(turca)"


 * The Term Marcia and Alla Turca are basically synonymous. They both mean march.  Alla Turca is a Turkish March.  So Marcia alla Turca is Turkish March March.
 * [Per history, contrib on 21:58, 16 June 2005 from User:71.32.2.252. Text preserved, but refactored by 'graphs by Jerzy·t 30 June 2005 02:04 (UTC).]
 * Uh, the two words are Italian. "Alla" means "in the manner of". "Turca" means "[the] Turk". The reference is to the real or fancied resemblence to the marches of the Ottoman janissaries, something of a fascination in Austria (or central and western Europe) at the time. So yes, standing alone in a musical context, "Alla Turca" would have then and may still be understood as implying either a march or something connected to a march. But "Marcia" and "Alla Turca" were and are far from "basically synonymous". (Notably since one means march and the could other apply only to Turkish and pseudo-Turkish marches, but more to the point:) The suggestion that "Marcia alla Turca" is wrong because it is as redundant as "Turkish March March" is absurd: "Yankees" implies "New York Yankees", but that doesn't make "New York Yankees" mean "New York New York Yankees"!  The extent of redundancy in "Marcia alla Turca" is merely a matter of being complete enough to make clear to the less well informed that the Turkish style of march (rather than dance, seranade, or hookah-trance music) is being invoked.  (And to rule out, for the more clearly thinking, its being what "Alla Turca" could equally well describe (to choose an example at random [wink]), a rondo reminiscent of a Turkish march.)
 * "Marcia alla Turca" is wrong here (see below), but not for that reason.
 * --Jerzy·t 30 June 2005 02:04 (UTC)
 * Yes, urtexts need apply only at the afterthot window. The criterion in this case is the commonly accepted name, "Rondo alla Turca".
 * If someone wants to mention that it was "Marcia alla Turca" on the original autograph manuscript, or on the copyist's fair copy for the publisher, or on the publisher's engraving for the first edition, or whatever, they can boldly edit it in below the list of the common-sense names of the movements. (But avoid the unencyclopedically vague language "actually wrong".)
 * --Jerzy·t 30 June 2005 02:04 (UTC)

Rondo or March?
I changed the bolded common name to "Turkish Rondo" from "Turkish March" - because isn't the piece most commonly known (in the English speaking world, anyway) as the "Turkish March" an actual march piece by Beethoven? Ellsworth 22:49, 19 August 2005 (UTC)

Brubeck
Is Brubeck's "Blue Rondo a la Turk" really a version of this? It's clearly inspired by it, but it's a stretch to say that they're essentially the same piece... Ellsworth 22:56, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)
 * Brubeck's "Blue Rondo a la Turk" is inspired, but not a version. Brubeck actually borrowed the name because his band was touring in Turkey when they composed it, and he also used the Traditional Turkish meter or 9/8.
 * [Per history, contrib on 21:58, 16 June 2005 from User:71.32.2.252. Text preserved, but refactored by 'graphs by Jerzy·t 30 June 2005 02:04 (UTC).]
 * Presumably "the Traditional Turkish meter or 9/8" means "9/8, a traditional Turkish meter".
 * It's hard to imagine Brubeck just happened to choose such a closely analogous title: surely he knew of the Mozart title. But describing a clever but straighforward choice of title as "inspired" is unnecessary and confusing.
 * Boldly edited in instead:
 * Jazz musician Dave Brubeck named his own famous Turkish-influenced work with a nearly parallel title, "Blue Rondo a la Turk".
 * --Jerzy·t 30 June 2005 02:04 (UTC)

ah, no

Civilization 2...
I seem to remember that this piece was used in Sid Meier's Civilization II as the theme for the Germans... should this be added as "Trivia"?


 * Hello, anonymous - Well, it would seem that this is a fact not about the rondo, but about Civilization II. Why not enter it there?  Be sure to confirm your observation first; it would really be bad to put something into an encyclopedia if you only "seem to remember" it.


 * I hope this helps.  Opus33 01:06, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

In popular culture section?
Should there be one? After all, if nothing else it is in the Truman Show (at least the third bit). Very famous piece.18:39, 3 May 2007 (UTC)


 * It's also one of the musics in Lemmings; coincidentally, the music for Level 11, the same number as the sonata. 91.105.62.65 11:59, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

It also appears in the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mothe as the introductory peice when Barney describes a play to use a on a girl from his playbook — Preceding unsigned comment added by 101.170.127.255 (talk) 02:10, 12 April 2014 (UTC)

authorship comment reverted
I removed this edit because it was uncited: "Some say that that the last section of the sonata was added by Mozart's student, Sussymayer." This is too popular and familiar a piece to insert such a bold statement in a "some say that" manner. If it turns out this is true, we'll need a citation. Thanks.DavidRF (talk) 16:58, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Imporvisation in the piece.
Is not there an imporvisation part or something in the piece and several vertions of it, I think something should be mentioned about it.
 * I've never heard of that. The official NMA score is linked.  Provide a movement and measure number for the part you are talking about.DavidRF (talk) 19:05, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Allegrino
I have the Wiener Urtext Edition of this piece and it lists the tempo of the third movement as "Allegrino". According to the critical notes that's how it appears in the original edition. - Gus (T, C) 2010-10-20 01:34Z
 * ... which is a "small allegro", just like allegretto: Both are Italian diminutives. I am at a loss to describe the difference (except that nowadays, only allegretto is used). Someone? --User:Haraldmmueller 10:27, 20 October 2022 (UTC)

Key of final movement
I changed this from A major to A minor (in which it opens) and major (in which it ends). Kostaki mou (talk) 00:09, 9 August 2011 (UTC)

Homotonal? Statement in lead
The lead says "All of the movements are in the key of A major or A minor." Is this strictly correct? The movements all start in A, but the trio in the minuet and trio of the second movement is in D major. --Wikitoov (talk) 11:25, 22 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Yes, its correct. A movement's key is the one that's established in the initial part of the form... not the one in the trio, development, introduction, etc.DavidRF (talk) 02:40, 24 September 2012 (UTC)

In Hip-Hop
This piece is sampled by the rapper Busdriver in the song 'Me Time (With The pulmonary palimpsest)'--122.106.118.226 (talk) 02:22, 30 January 2013 (UTC)

Rondo Alla Turca was used by the Turkish people for dances and parties (completely made this up). The editor of this page does not know how to spell improvisational. Don't trust every source! You may just stumble upon one like this one and realise the internet can't be trusted completely. I don't trust anyone who can't spell simple words. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.29.199.102 (talk) 08:27, 26 April 2018‎ (UTC)

Questionable link between Rondo and variations in 1st movement.
Referring to this:


 * The third movement is related to the first one, because its beginning can be seen as an additional variation of the theme of the first movement, varied in the Janissary style.

I simply don't think it's true, and I can see nothing in the music that supports it. Can I just remove this?

The main argument against regarding the first theme of the Rondo as a variation of the Theme in the first movement is that the first half of the Rondo theme clearly moves to the dominant key (E minor) and ends there, whereas the corresponding section in the variation Theme ends in the tonic (A major, and A minor in the minor-key variation). Other modulations, such as those in the second half of the respective themes, do not correspond, either - not even when you consider the minor-key variation, this being the one you'd expect to have the closest relationship with the minor-key Rondo theme.

To my mind, unless someone can show compelling correspondences between the two themes I've somehow missed, these two themes are not particularly related at all.

Another thing is that, at this time in musical history, it was quite uncommon for links between separate movements of a sonata or symphony to be put in. Beethoven made a tentative step in this direction occasionally, but it was mainly later composers like Liszt, Franck, Saint-Saens, Scriabin, and lots of late romantics, who did this in a big way - not Mozart or others of his era.

So I'm tempted to remove this remark, and will consider whether to or not. Does anyone object? M.J.E. (talk) 08:23, 26 March 2013 (UTC)
 * Long gone :-) --User:Haraldmmueller 14:28, 10 November 2022 (UTC)

Relationships to later compositions
User:Doniago that the following 2 sentences constitute original research and must be removed from the article: "The theme of the first movement was used by Max Reger in his Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Mozart (1914) for orchestra. Dave Brubeck's 'Blue Rondo à la Turk' (1959) is not based on or related to the last movement, 'Alla Turca'." I think that is an unnecessarily narrow view of WP:OR. Both assertions may not rise to the level of self-evidence that "Paris is the capital of France." provides. However, an inspection of the respective primary sources (the scores or recordings) to the permissible extent mentioned in WP:PRIMARY ("to describe the plot" ) will confirm both assertions. What's the alternative? I suggest to restore that section. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 07:15, 9 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Do you have any grounds for claiming the assertions in the sentences are true beyond "I believe them to be"? Additionally the first sentence should have sourcing that establishes that the usage is significant in some manner. Otherwise why is the usage there any more important than any other usage? And why is it important that another piece of music is not based on this piece? These are questions that sources would help to answer. Regards. DonIago (talk) 12:26, 9 September 2013 (UTC)
 * Is it reasonable to challenge the assertion that anyone can identify the connection between a work named Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Mozart and Mozart's K. 331 by listening to both? Is it reasonable to request that some manner of significant link be established between a work whose title directly refers to Mozart? On the other hand, it is reasonable to expect that a piece whose most famous section is often called "Rondo alla Turca" and another called "Blue Rondo à la Turk" are believed to be related to each other, and it is helpful to point out that they aren't. To repeat my main point, which you didn't address: inspection of the respective primary sources (the scores or recordings) to the permissible extent mentioned in WP:PRIMARY ("to describe the plot" ) will confirm both assertions. -- Michael Bednarek (talk) 11:13, 10 September 2013 (UTC)
 * To use an analogy, I believe what you're saying is similar to claiming that one could confirm by inspection of many Simpsons episodes that they're "obviously" referencing Citizen Kane. We don't, however, make a point of listing every reference to Citizen Kane that The Simpsons makes. Rather, in accordance with WP:IPC and to avoid any potential original research issues, we focus on the references that garnered third-party attention, which we establish via sourcing. DonIago (talk) 13:53, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

2014 original score

 * www.reuters.com/article/2014/10/01/hungary-mozart-idUSL6N0RW0K320141001
 * Hungarian scholar stumbles on original score of Mozart sonata
 * Wed Oct 1, 2014 2:23am EDT
 * By Krisztina Fenyo

Which four pages were found? Out of how many? Where can we find good images of these pages? Can we add such images to this article? Where can we find an analysis of the differences between the various editions of the score? Where can we find performances of the original version? -96.233.16.208 (talk) 18:33, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

A lot of this information is not yet known. The new pages haven't been released to the public. It has been performed, but not recorded, by Zoltan Kocsis. Larghissimo (talk) 20:54, 4 October 2014 (UTC)

Menuetto - Minuetto
Ricce: "Menuetto" may not be used anymore in present-day Italian, but it was used in Mozart's day and cannot therefore be regarded as incorrect. Kostaki mou (talk) 13:58, 22 March 2018 (UTC)

Third movement is not a rondo
The first edition (Artaria, 1784) as well as urtext editions Barenreiter (1986) et Peters (1938) do not mention "rondo" anywhere.

Additionally, the musical form of the third movement is not a rondo. It is a compound ternary form with a bridge (C) between each of the ternary forms and a coda (F):

[A B A'] C [D E D'] C [A B A'] C' F

Note that with repeats the structure becomes:

[(A A) (B A' B A')] C C [(D D) (E D' E D')] C C [(A A) (B A' B A')] C' C' F

Therefore, nothing justifies the name rondo. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.59.42.236 (talk) 21:49, 1 August 2018 (UTC)
 * The movement sounds like a rondo and acts like one: the main themes constantly repeat parts of themselves, are repeated often with (almost) no change, the structure is determinedly sectional, and the only section outside the tonic is in the relative minor, a form of the subdominant. So we can see that it absorbs many features of the rondo. A strict taxonomy of classical forms based on strict separations of "binary", "ternary", "sonata", "rondo" and so on is usually unhelpful. Double sharp (talk) 12:46, 10 September 2019 (UTC)
 * Well, I disagree with you. The main characteristic of Rondos is an alternation between a main theme and other material. This is not the case here at all: the main theme only returns at the end (before a coda). The only section repeated three times is the bridge. Since this small section doesn't function as the main theme, the piece cannot qualify as a Rondo. That the structure is sectional doesn't imply a rondo. Scherzos, minuets, large ternary forms are also sectional. Finally, let me repeat again that Mozart didn't call this piece Rondo, which he usually does when he write rondos. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A01:CB15:8049:F900:DAA2:5EFF:FE8B:4953 (talk) 20:44, 10 August 2020 (UTC)


 * I would argue that the "rondo refrain" of this movement is not the two-strain A minor theme with which it begins, but rather the one-strain A major theme that follows it--the one labelled "C" in the diagram above. In other words, I think the one you're calling a "bridge" is indeed the main theme. If we call this theme "A" instead, we end up with the following: B-A-C-A-B-A-coda, where B is the two-strain A minor theme and C is the two-strain F-sharp minor theme in the middle. This is essentially a conventional seven-part rondo, but with the very unconventional trait of having the initial refrain excised. If you think of it this way, it looks quite normal: [A]-B-A-C-A-B-A-coda, with the key scheme [A]-a-A-f#-A-a-A. This probably counts as original research and thus not suitable for the article itself, but I did want to put this here to say that I think classifying it as a rondo isn't wrong. 2601:180:8301:540:B4F3:84F3:99BB:3976 (talk) 01:50, 25 October 2020 (UTC)