march

march, in music

march, in music, composition intended to accompany marching. The only constant characteristics of a march are duple meter and a fairly simple rhythmic design. In mood, marches range from the moving death march in Wagner's Götterdämmerung to the brisk military marches of John Philip Sousa and the martial hymns of the late 19th cent. Examples of the varied use of the march can be found in Beethoven's Eroica Symphony, in the marches militaires of Schubert, in the marche funèbre in Chopin's Sonata in B flat minor, and in the Dead March in Handel's Saul.

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March, month

March: see month.

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March, river, Czech Republic and Austria

March: see Morava, river.

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march

Musical form having an even metre with strongly accented beats, originally intended to facilitate military marching. Development of the European march may have been stimulated by the Ottoman invasions of the 14th–16th centuries. Marches were not notated until the late 16th century; until then, time was generally kept by percussion alone, often with improvised fife embellishment. With the extensive development of brass instruments, especially in the 19th century, marches became widely popular and were often elaborately orchestrated. Composers such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, and Gustav Mahler wrote marches, often incorporating them into their operas, sonatas, or symphonies. The later popularity of John Philip Sousa's band marches was unmatched.

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march¹

a piece of music, usually in four beats to the bar, having a strongly accented rhythm

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march²

a frontier, border, or boundary or the land lying along it, often of disputed ownership