Availability Available Published 13th October 2008
Cat No.JM48865 Price
£49.95 Composer: P.I. Tschaikovsky Arranger: Nicholas Childs Category: LIGHT CONCERT MUSIC
'Marche Slave' Duration: 7:00
Programme Notes Marche Slave is not a march at all but an elaborate concert piece; a symphonic tone poem on the subject of the military alliance between Russia and Serbia. The work includes folk songs from both countries.
Serbian folk tunes constitute the principal thematic material in the piece, with Russian airs introduced for symbolic support. It is interesting that Tchaikovsky quoted God Save the Tsar in several ceremonial works. In addition to this one, it was most famously used in his 7812 Overture, written four years after Marche Slave.
Russia and Turkey were at war intermittently for almost 200 years during which time the Czarist Empire slowly drove the Ottoman Turks back from its southern borders. In 1876 Serbia declared war on Turkey, and Russia joined the conflict in 1811.
A concert for the benefit of the Serbian wounded and the Red Cross was planned for November 17th 1876 in Moscow. Tchaikovsky, was asked to write something for the occasion, and he completed Marche Slave on October ]71h that year. The first performance took place six weeks later in Moscow, with Nikolai Rubinstein conducting. Tchaikovsky referred to Marche Slave as his “Russo-Serbian March”. The work evoked tremendous patriotic enthusiasm when it was first performed and today still touches the deepest parts of the soul for the majority of its audience.
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