How to master Mozart's most FAMOUS joke (featuring Orli Shaham)

A piano lesson on one of Mozart's most famous pieces -- the Turkish March.
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Tonebase Artist Orli Shaham teaches a lesson on one of Mozart's most famous piano pieces -- the Turkish March, or Rondo alla turca, from The Sonata in A Major K. 331.
For the full course and much more, check out Tonebase Premium!
This video also features Tonebase content from Fei-Fei's Chopin Preludes Course, and Sara Davis Buechner's course on Mozart's C Major Piano Sonata K.545.
0:00 Classical Piano's Biggest Joker
2:37 Breaking Rules in Mozart's 3rd Movements
3:42 Lean into the Simple Humor
4:41 The Left Hand is a Folk Band
5:38 Don't Give Away the Joke!
7:40 Virtuosic Street Performance
8:55 Playful Variations
10:47 Glorious Grand Finale
Hosted by Robert Fleitz - / rfleitz
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Questions? Contact us: [e-mail]
#mozart #piano #tonebase #tutorial #technique #aprilfools #pianomusic #jokes

[@tonebasePiano]

Who's your favorite joker in piano history?

[@johnburk6564]

Victor Borge!

[@ChristophersMusic]

Andre Preview (Previn) when he appeared on the Morecombe and Wise Show (a 70's British comedy show)

[@cioccolateriaveneziana]

Beethoven. 3rd movements of his concertos... Rage over the Lost Penny... He knew how to make fun with music.

[@jtbasener8740]

The snickers of Papa Hadyn after my first jumping out of ny seat on the surprise chord will forever reverberate in my memory.

[@Ludwingvanchopin]

Hamelin,My feeling about Choccolate or Valse de irritation d'apre nokia

[@JoshuaSlagowski]

I just really love how you can "hear" the bass drum, cymbals, and triangle clanging on the first beat of every measure at the end.

[@Renshen1957]

The Viennese Piano's of the 19th Century included these for Janissary Music, which existed longer in the USA after Europe had abandoned this separate pedal addition.

[@NothingMaster]

To create a timeless masterpiece out of a simple playful theme requires an exceptional feat of imagination.

[@dennischiapello7243]

To call the heavy bass in the A major section "sub-woofing" is brilliant! 😆 I couldn't help thinking, of course, of Fazil Say's notorious jazzy riff on this piece, and now I especially appreciate its connection to the spirit of Mozart.

[@JiveDadson]

It's called the "bass drop."

[@RModillo]

A lovely 12 minutes! Great playing, analysis, and communication. (From a once-upon-a-time HM student.)

[@SaimoodPianoVersions]

Glenn Gould joke killed me xD.

[@drek7361]

What a wonderful lesson! So much depth to uncover in a seemingly “simple” piece, and I appreciate how your instruction invites the student to explore their own way of interpreting this playfulness

[@AllThisOverASliceOfGabagool]

Is this piece simple though? 🤔

[@melmelsmusicstudio1800]

Oh I love this - thank you for the enthusiasm and permission to explore this fun piece we all know and love!

[@tplayspiano]

Very helpful and timely video - I am currently working on this piece - thank you.

[@-Cinderman]

What a fabulous video! Many thanks!

[@dsugimoto313]

Thank you for this. It was an educational treat to get some insight into how a master pianist interprets such a well known piece.

[@brianregan5053]

Great exposition of Maestro Mozart

[@tommymandel]

Fabulous teacher. Thank you!

[@jamieredden554]

I learned so much about this piece that makes me want to dig it back out and play it

[@jamesburnett7085]

OMG! What a thrilling presentation. What exquisitely colorful, nuanced fun.

[@DrHampie]

Please make another video about: 'Super-Virtuoso Breaks Down 9 Impossible Piano Pieces' !!!!!!!

[@sottx8268]

I enjoyed the analysis. Thanks professor

[@benharmonics]

It’s interesting how some editions (like the one used in this video) notate the opening melody as simple sixteenth notes, but other versions use appoggiaturas followed by sixteenth notes instead.

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

"Ein musikalischer Spaß" is really great if you understand a bit on composition. It is basically a parody of a symphony, breaking rules and systems on purpose, repeats phrases instead of adding new, like a bad composer would write them. With notes that sound like the performing musicians are unqualified and play wrong. He basically plays the musicians and music "industry" at the time for fools.

[@RunEnabled]

Finally a video about a piece I have a chance of playing

[@mangomerkel2005]

Grazie, signore.

[@gervasiomontenegro569]

Salieri, are you?

[@orizoref]

Tonebase video!

[@5610winston]

Come to think of it, the Borodin _Scherzo in A-flat_ was quite witty, possibly the funniest piano piece ever composed by a chemist. The Borodin-Hunsdiecker reaction is also pretty amusing.

[@danielmkubacki]

So cool!

[@lordneeko]

Listening to Juliard piano master is just so pleasant to the ears

[@mertnecati875]

Watched that and it is interesting you did not mention about rhythmic structure of left hand being the exact copy of Ottoman jannisary music. So not only timbre wise with ornaments but also rhytmically Mozart aimed to create what he called as "Turkische Musik" in his own letters. Same goes for right hand melody in mid section. He just observed the qualities of the Turkish music very well (probably through music of Gluck he encountered in Paris and Haydn- both of these composers already composed in Turkish style) and tried to reflect that. So you also say form is kinda free at the beginning, is it really? All I see is a strictly planned rondo form. Anyway, Mozart composed many works in popular Turkish style of the time or used the style as a new element without referring to its Turkishness and that s just one of the most successful applications of it.

[@xylfox]

Gluck u. Haydn wrote "turkish music"? Interesting!

[@mertnecati875]

@@xylfox I dont know if they called it like that but Mozart openly uses the phrase "Turkische Musik" in his letter to Leopold when he uses Ottoman percussion instruments. Gluck and Haydn also involved in topics about Turks and composed operas involving alla turca style.

[@gillesdelaunoit365]

thanks for this masterclass in interpretating music. I play the turkish marsh as a second voice on a ska version of Tetris with my band (with a little twist), and it sound quite funny for the musical fans that can catch the joke. After seeing this video, I feel maybe Mozart would have appreciate the joke as well... 😁

[@TITAN1UM87]

P.D.Q bach definitely funniest

[@LittleEmmeHasDreams]

Little Emme adores Mozart. She would play Alla Turca very, very gently and warmly. Instead of pleasing others, Little Emme would only like to please herself because she doesn't really care about what her audience thinks.

[@ilayohana3150]

Thanks orli greetings from Home

[@rushinroulette4636]

Somehow I have a feeling if Mozart had heard the comments about "subwoofing", he would have composed a new piece with a Chihuaua on one side of the piano and a St. Bernard on the otherside as a 18th century style Subwoofer

[@pghagen]

Never heard the Turkish March better than Shura Cherkassky's interpretation. It' on one of his Decca or Nimbus recordings.

[@srh2301]

Very interesting inside views into this musical piece of art. But I didn't get where's the "joke" after all? In Beethoven's - Rage Over a Lost Penny or in Haydn's Symphony No. 94 "The surprise" the joke is way more obvious. IMHO.

[@weissrw1]

A famous writer from the 60s and 70s in the 80s was surprised at how his writings were then taught in colleges. He had no idea he was so smart and insightful. Oh, so that was what I was thinking!

[@manouchk38]

Very interesting! 10:26 "and then when you get to here", things just get clearly more difficult!!

[@DenisPuscaOfficial]

Where is Ben...?😢

[@tonebasePiano]

Don't worry, Ben has started his own channel and is making fabulous content there! You should definitely go show him some love and support him on his new venture!

[@OctoPlaysPiano]

Ben has his own channel now! Show some support for Robert too, out here killing it

[@pimptoking]

@@frankdrebinn .... Have i missed something? Ben said some shit?

[@richskytakethat2643]

@@pimptoking No, just left to pursue other things

[@Thestuffdoer]

I ate him, sorry

[@seanonel]

Now I'm looking forward to her breaking down Eddie Izzard's comedy routines next...

[@spivvo]

Victor Borge was pretty funny

[@lordneeko]

Mozart. The original jazz composer

[@Libertariun]

Humour is the best test of intelligence

[@fabioventura7852]

Loved it... but the overedited editions of the score, with the "corrected" slurs are quite offensive to the public and Mozart himself 😂

[@RockinTheDub]

Huh?

[@sherylbegby]

I had auto-subtitles on, and it came up with "this glorious opening in a manger". I ... I just think we should leave it there.

[@Brusselpicker]

Glenn Gould was disparaging about Mozart, his recordings are about him not the music.

[@MuSic-ok7dh]

Mozart famous joke and no nosedive?? So let me tell that one: Mozart challenged Haydn, saying he has a piece the other cannot play. So Haydn sits to the manuscript and plays, until he reaches a moment when there are notes in upper register, notes in lower register, and single note in middle of keyboard. "This piece is impossible to play with just two hands!" states Haydn. "Yet, I can do it" - Mozart claims. He sits at the piano and plays the passage. When he reaches the spot, left hand is playing lower register, right hand playing top register, he leans down into the keyboard and strikes the middle note with his nose. Haydn conceded his defeat that day.

[@RModillo]

Another approach: kzbin.info/www/bejne/injZf4iMo9Fqfac

[@arekkrolak6320]

Without further ado occurs at 2:26

[@otakubancho6655]

The Greaseman used it for his Tuna Fish song.

[@lawrencetaylor4101]

MMIA My Mirth Is Audible

[@michaelrichter9427]

30 seconds of background. Two minutes of ads. Then I stopped watching. Maybe put the ads elsewhere. You know, maybe put them AFTER you've gripped the audience and made them willing to listen. Putting them up front failed.

[@matthewrippingsby5384]

Excellent. Thanks for restoring dignity to a piece usually played as if by Beethoven rather than Mozart - crunching tune for rhythm and creating messy blobs of sound and a twee dullness unforgivably resonant of an annoyed, impatient musician hammering home his resentment (not that that describes most Beethoven!) . Good work!

[@yankeecornbread8464]

For me the punch line was when she said C major, but it sounded like teenager.

[@xtian1]

A lovely demonstration of how open to interpretation this movement is. We've all heard countless renditions. But... why do you say it is funny? This is never explained from your/her point of view. Yes, the piece is playful. Yes, it can be interpreted at infinitum. Are these the things you are telling us is funny? Explain the joke, please.

[@samueldrapeau9106]

Where's the musical joke? Liked the video and everything but I didn't catch it. (Where's The Lick? :p)

[@Traumglanz]

I don't get the kinda square sides and being rude with dynamics or how to be sober when playing, but I certainly can say that Rondo Alla Turca is still super fun when played with Electric guitars, bass and a drummer who really gets that marsh going. It fun in a classical metal arrangement. And yes, you really go all in and and just enjoy playing the bass. ;-)

[@msolec2000]

I can play perfectly, but only if I'm playing Cash's 4'33"

[@evifnoskcaj]

Imagine referencing Amadeus while pretending to be historically accurate. Good April Fool's joke!

[@raylf3141]

Literally just say Pianism. You're gonna get most dudes with that one and some of the women. I know. It's juvenile and absurd but deep down so are most people. That's just humanity. Cheers.

[@raylf3141]

@@grafplaten If two ex wives and more than 40 years couldn't get me to do so I'm afraid you stand no chance.

[@FormlessDuck]

She's delightfully unpretentious for a julliard faculty.

[@charlesdavenport6094]

The late Victor Borge

[@mimziemimz]

No, those of us with brains don't look at it as "cultural appropriation".

[@lindasegerious9248]

As trolling goes, nobody beats Haydn

[@redthorpe]

I never think of a "folk band" when I think of music written for a harpsichord

[@lintonsha]

Don't be. This is art. He knows. Instink gayable feeling

[@garretkaplan]

I miss Ben 😢 still like the new guy tho!

[@tonebasePiano]

Ben is still out there making great content on his own channel! You can have the best of both worlds 😀 Thanks for watching!

[@garretkaplan]

@@tonebasePiano thank you for making great stuff! Would love some Scriabin or Messiaen videos in the future!

[@mustuploadtoo7543]

beethoven

[@namesname7315]

issue is that is for harpsichord and harpsichord don not have that dynamics like fortepiano do. for this particular contrast fortepiano got its name.🙃

[@BunniesRcooler]

4 minutes ago wow

[@francoisvillon1300]

"Моцарт на Ямахе" - уже превосходная шутка!

[@JohnJackson-mn4ts]

I want a 10 inch pianist! 😉

[@cioccolateriaveneziana]

Who listens to Mozart and thinks "cultural appropriation"??

[@markop.1994]

You mean colonization? Cultural appropriation is adopting anothers customs for reasons of profit one way or another. Like Steven Segal when he made that awful reggae album where he pretended to have a Jamaican accent. This is different from cultural appreciation which should be encouraged.

[@cioccolateriaveneziana]

@@markop.1994 I mean "cultural appropriation" that the pianist mentioned in the video. I think we should simply stop with this "appropriation" nonsense. Whoever introduced it in the public discourse did everyone a disservice.

[@grafplaten]

@@cioccolateriaveneziana I rolled my eyes when she uttered the phrase "cultural appropriation." Maybe orchestras should then eliminate all use of cymbals, triangles and bass drums, as these are "appropriations" from Turkish culture.

[@cioccolateriaveneziana]

@@grafplaten I always roll my eyes when I hear about "c. appr."

[@moriokayuri]

Robert :" some of the funniest people i know are pianists..." Well none of them are here, what a bunch of people with no sense of humor, you need to draw and grab their hands like a toddler so they can understand that it is a historical joke.

[@moriokayuri]

Also, you can disagree without being disrepectful, you guys on the comments section need to do better.

[@teresagardiner153]

@@moriokayuri That's every KZbin comments section ever. Mozart himself was a pianist and he was very funny (read his letters!), but he seems more like the exception than the rule.

[@bylokonnor]

According to researchers, there is no evidence that Mozart had that laugh they gave him in Amadeus.

[@stevesabaugh5128]

BE MORE FUNNY!!!

[@jsc5492]

Amateurs are not the ignoramuses that she pretends. Amateurs LOVE the art they are following. As for professionals, they are paid to play the stuff they are generally supposed to love; lol.

[@EtzEchad]

I don't get the joke.

[@JerryEboy69]

It’s more light-hearted than a “joke.” As she said, it was “hip” at the time. Therefore, it’s completely possible to bring that quality back (which was intended!) to satisfy the composer, audience, and any reasonable judge. Again, more so light-hearted quality than a full on joke

[@deezynar]

Joke? I don't sense anything funny about it. It's a compelling piece, with vigor and joy.

[@shinywarm6906]

"Fun" =/= "a joke"

[@leandrogulrt]

=/= ≠ ≠

[@wiktord9264]

​@@leandrogulrtdammnnn

[@RockinTheDub]

@@wiktord9264that was cold

[@MrDogonjon]

My hands are things just like in the Adams Family free minded actors that are severed hands who none the less do my bidding in spite of my lack of talent they showboat to try to make me look good.

[@PASHKULI]

words salad

[@simonalbrecht9435]

You don't know whether the forte making in some editions is by Mozart? Maybe look at a critical edition and research it before teaching a lecture?…

[@anthonymccarthy4164]

That stupid friggin' play that totally distorted Mozart's personality on the basis of the idiot author not getting it right.

[@redthorpe]

Just... No... Maybe he published it for money? Then play it as it's written!

[@bobdoney2963]

A joke explained is a joke lost.

[@redthorpe]

This video is disrespectful and an insult Provide some proof of your claims, or let it rest. Don't go out of your way to try to spoil other people's enjoyment of genuinely good music!

[@dirtyharry1881]

Too much talk. Too obvious observations. Playful yes. Heard nothing funny, though.

[@ScarRach]

If you want to listen to a recording, this is not the place.

[@mmaximk]

I found a playful and enjoyable.

[@spivvo]

Gave up watching…. Too much waffle

[@chriscubbernuss3288]

I guess you had to be there.

[@matthewrippingsby5384]

Perhaps, but a new perspective for many of us.

[@michaelmertens813]

Very nice, but jokes that need explaination aren´t really jokes.

[@walrusmaximus]

They might if they were written hundreds of years ago

[@batboy5023]

this channel is dying to me

[@LPSArtemis88888]

okay

[@batboy5023]

@@LPSArtemis88888 its getting shit

[@DietervonBraun1973]

I have never heard a performance that made this piece sound more interesting then a rather uninspired silly experiment. I can not think of an oriental inspired piece that sounds less oriental then this. Imagine if this piece was not written by Mozart, but by a forgotten 18th century composer. Would we care for this piece ?

[@animalsarebeautifulpeople3094]

But Mozart did write this music. Just because you don't like it, doesn't mean it's not great.

[@animalsarebeautifulpeople3094]

Mozart is revered because his music is great, not the other way around. 🤔🙄

[@turtlespiritflutes7570]

He was imitating the cymbals and percussion of the Turkish marching bands, not necessarily the melodic influence. That being said, doesn't work for me either. Don't feel like laughing, marching. I need sublime. But in the spirit of freedom of speech and expression, people should party on.

[@M_SC]

Yes. It’s an instantly accessible, enjoyable piece. To listen to and to learn.

[@trackmasters65]

It's a melodic masterpiece, that's why every knows it from pretentious classical music buffs to gangstas in the Bronx.

[@stevieb6368]

Both Haydn and Beethoven could be very humorous in their music. When I'm playing through this Mozart Piano Sonata, I leave out the final movement because I hate it! It's rubbish!

[@dalegreer3095]

omg so much cringe. But this piece has been used for comedy quite a bit over the years.

[@thomasherzog86]

maybe it gets batter after 5 minutes, but i simply cant proceed this hogwash. The theme is just an an arpeggio? Lady, have you ever heard about motives? Most themes are just a chord if you break down their motives! Surprise; you just learned how music works.

[@Mini_Min_]

I miss Ben....Vocal fry guy is a bit too much for my ears.

[@hurricane_hazel]

So rude. You know these are human beings here, right?

[@johnburk6564]

You’ll be OK.

[@animalsarebeautifulpeople3094]

Ben has his own channel. Google Ben laude

[@NN-rn1oz]

I disagree. I found Ben insufferable because he tried too hard to be funny. This one does too, but is not as bad.

[@OctoPlaysPiano]

@@NN-rn1oz Ben and Robert are both amazing!

[@bazsnell3178]

What a load of pretentious tosh!!

[@MusicOfDreamweaver]

Mozart, perhaps the most overrated composer. Too often I only hear rules in his music, not melodies or harmonies.

[@berkefeil5646]

He composed some of the most beautiful melodies I know, like, what are you talking about haha

[@scarf550]

idk man, he was a melodic genius

[@Tennisisreallyfun]

I second both of the replies to your comment. If he doesn’t compose melodies, then tell me, what is a melody? And I want to know, as I am a trained violinist. It would be good knowledge for me😂

[@cioccolateriaveneziana]

I agree. Overrated. Most of his music is bland. What's not bland are these few shiny pieces everyone knows. He was talented, though. One or two piano fantasies, the C major piano concerto no. 25 and the Requiem are good. Plus a few arias in his melodramatic operas.