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Schubert - Marche militaire
Identifier
020622
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
Schubert spent the summer of 1818, as a music teacher to the family of Count Johann Karl Esterházy at their château in Zseliz (now Želiezovce, Slovakia). The pay was relatively good, and his duties teaching piano and singing to the two daughters were relatively light, allowing him to compose happily. Both Marie and Karoline's being his piano students and the original score of the Marche Militaire in D major (D. 733 no. 1) being a piano duet suggest it may have been at this time he wrote this now world-famous composition. On his return from Zseliz, he took up residence with his friend Mayrhofer. The respite at Zseliz led to a succession of compositions for piano duet.
Wikipedia
It has been said that he held a hopeless passion for his pupil, the Countess Karoline Eszterházy... His friend Eduard von Bauernfeld penned the following verse, which appears to reference Schubert's unrequited sentiments:
In love with a Countess of youthful grace,
—A pupil of Galt's; in desperate case
Young Schubert surrenders himself to another,
And fain would avoid such affectionate pother
A description of the experience
M.J.Pires & H.Sermet plays Schubert Marche Militaire op.51 no.1
Maria João Pires (1944)
Born in Lisbon, Portugal, she made her first public performance at the age of seven with Mozarts Piano Concertos. At the age of nine she received Portugals highest award for young musicians just one year later. From 1953 until 1960 she studied at the Lisbon Conservatory with Professor Campos Coelho and took courses in composition, theory, and history of music with Francine Benoit.
She continued her studies in Germany, first at the Munich Music Academy with Rosl Schmid, then in Hanover with Karl Engel. Maria João Pires has appeared all over the globe with all the major orchestras including the Berliner Philhar¬moniker, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra, the London Philharmonic, the Orchestre de Paris, and the Wiener Philharmoniker.
She is also a keen performer of chamber music. In recent years she has been heard at all the major international festivals including the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festi¬val, the Schubertiade, Tanglewood, Ravinia, Montpellier, Lucerne, Edinburgh and BBC Proms.
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Hüseyin Sermet (1955)
Born in Istanbul, Turkey, he began to study music at the age of seven. In 1965, he began his education at the Ankara State Conservatory and in 1968 went to the Conservatoire Supérieur de Musique de Paris, where he was awarded First Prize in piano, chamber music, counterpoint and musical analysis. He studied composition with Oliver Messiaen at the Paris Conservatoire and with Thierry de Brunhoff at the Ecole Normale Alfred Cortot. He continued his studies in musical analysis and piano with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, then with Maria Curceo in London.
Sermet has won many international competitions such as the 1974 Munich and Paris International Chamber Music Competition, the 1974 and 1975 Lili Boulanger Competition, the Third Prize at the 1975 Maurice Ravel Competition, the Special Award of the 1975 Sacem, the 1976 Santander Paloma OShea Competition, the Special Prize at the 1976 Eduardo Casanuevo Competition, the 1981 Jaen International Competition, the 1981 Ettore Pozzoli Competitioni, the 1983 Francesco Paola Neglia Competition, Queen Elizabeth Competition in 1983 and the 1985 Geza Anda Piano Competition.
His CD records have been awarded with the most prestigious prizes of the music world, such as the Diapason d′Or, Choc de la Musique and MIDEM Classical Award. Sermet has unearthed rarely-heard pieces of French music and realized the first CD recording of Florent Schmitts Symphonie Concertante with the Monte Carlo Orchestra conducted by David Robertson.