A few years ago, Mozart wrote a piano sonata he called No. 11 in A Major. K 331, for those of you who know about Köchel and his OCD issues. Anyway, the third movement, called “Rondo Alla Turca” (Rondo in the Turkish style) or, variously “Turkish March”, is a relatively well-known work. The video below is an example of it, with 10 performers playing it simultaneously. It’s like getting ten performances all at once. A great time-saver!
This one guy, Fritz Steinegger (whose name means Man Who Throws Eggs At Beer Mugs), released a free mp3 on the web. His performance disappointed me, however. There’s something to be said for making a piece of work your own, but my humble opinion is that he took the piece, ripped it to shreds, glued the shreds back together, bunched it up in a pile, jumped up and down on it, folded it, spindled it, and then steamrolled it out. If you’d like to listen to it, go right ahead, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.
One variation of it that I think is pretty cool is by John Hawksley. You can find it on this page as Rondo Alla Turka and it sounds like it was done on a xylophone. And in the middle, he switches briefly to Puttin’ on the Ritz. It’s dynamic and fun, and I’m glad he released it for free.