MARCH

originally, musical form having an even metre with strongly accented first beats to facilitate military marching; many later examples, while retaining the military connotation, were not intended for actual marching. The march was a lasting bequest of the Turkish invasion of Europe, where it eventually consisted formally of an initial march alternating with one or more contrasting sections, or trios. One of the earliest examples, by Thoinot Arbeau, appeared in 1589. In 17th-century France, the military band of Louis XIV played marches, and France literally set the pace for march music all over Europe well into the 19th century. The French Revolutionary decade with its countless public rituals left a profound imprint on Ludwig van Beethoven's numerous marches, such as those in the Piano Sonata in A Flat, Opus 26, and the Third Symphony (Eroica). Similar events of the Napoleonic and post-Napoleonic eras are reflected in the pomp and circumstance of the march in Frdric Chopin's Piano Sonata in B Flat Minor and the much-emulated March to the Gallows section of Hector Berlioz's Symphonie fantastique. In the 20th century, Sergey Prokofiev and Igor Stravinsky evoked the march for satirical purposes as well. A relatively gentle tradition evolved in Austria from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Franz Schubert to Gustav Mahler, whereas Britain excelled in marches that were theatrical rather than military in nature and as such were virtually unrivaled until the early 1900s when John Philip Sousa established America's preeminence in the field of band music.