Quickstep in the Battle of Prague
Jack-in-the-Green track 9
Also known as The Turk’s March, this is from the tunebooks of nineteenth century Northamptonshire poet (and fiddle-player) John Clare.
Quickstep in the Battle of Prague - John Clare MSS
At the time of recording this on Jack-in-the-Green the only other information I could provide was that the Battle of Prague took place on 6th May 1757, between the forces of Austria and Frederick the Great's Prussia. But I had long suspected that this tune originated as part of a classical suite written to commemorate the battle - the more so as Clare's manuscripts also included a march titled The Battle of Prague. I had to wait for the coming of the World Wide Web to satisfy my curiosity, and to discover that the tune was indeed a composed piece, by one, František Kocžwara (circa 1750 - 1791). Kocžwara was a Bohemian instrumentalist and composer who had been born in Prague - just a few years before the battle took place, you'll notice.
The article on Kocžwara in Grove Music Online says that "He seems to have been something of a vagabond, although his mature career centred on England". He is known to have worked as a musician and composer at various times in London, Bath and in Ireland. He played a number of instruments: viola, double bass, piano, violin, cello, oboe, flute, bassoon and cittern; at the time of his death he was employed as a player of the double bass at the King's Theatre in London.
As a composer, his greatest hit was undoubtedly his opus 23, the programmatic piece, The Battle of Prague. First published in Dublin around 1788 as a trio for violin, cello and piano, it was widely reprinted, including as a solo piano piece (Jane Austen is known to have owned a copy of this). Grove Music Online calls it "a phenomenal success" reporting that "In Boston it was ‘indespensable to climax every concert’. Appearing shortly before widespread political upheaval in Europe, it provided the model for a host of imitations".
The Battle of Prague paints a musical picture of the battle, with sections labelled "The bugle horn call for the cavalry", "Flying bullets", "Attack with swords", "The cries of the wounded" and so forth. It opens with "Slow March" - which appears as The Battle of Prague in John Clare's MSS, and as Grand March in the Battle of Prague in the MSS of John Moore of Shropshire. Towards the end of the suite is "Turkish Music", and it is this which appears in John Clare's MS, as Quickstep in the Battle of Prague and then again as Turk's March.
The "Turkish Music" is nothing to do with the presence of Turkish troops at the battle (there weren't any) but reflects the vogue for so called Turkish Music - as evidenced, for example, in Mozart's Rondo a la Turque. Similarly, the inclusion of God Save the King in the sonata is probably explained by contemporary fashion - British troops were not involved in the battle.
Here's a Midi file of the complete Battle of Prague suite played on piano, from www.classicalmidi.co.uk
It is worth noting that in the original the Slow March is written in the key of F and the Turkish Music is in C. In Clare's and Moore's versions, they have all been transposed to the more fiddle-friendly key of D. One might suppose that both country musicians learned the tunes by ear, and wrote them down in an "obvious" key for ear-players. But the two manuscript versions of the March are very nearly identical; while Clare's includes grace-notes, trills and ties, which suggests he copied the tune from a printed source - so was there an intermediate printed version in D from which both their versions derive? Further research, as they say, is required.
Finally, although the entry in Grove concentrates on Kocžwara's musical achievements, it cannot completly ignore the circumstances of his death, and neither can we:
Koczwara gained special notoriety by the manner of his death, with which most early accounts of him are primarily concerned. He was reputed to have had unusual taste in his vices, and was accidentally hanged while conducting an experiment in a house of ill repute. Susan Hill, his accomplice in the experiment, was tried for murder at the Old Bailey on 16 September 1791 and was acquitted.
If you want to know more of the gory details, then you'll find them in this Wikipedia article.
The original trio arrangement of The Battle of Prague is still in print, available from Corda Music Publications. I was very impressed when I went to Blackwell's Music Shop in Oxford that
- they had a copy in stock
- the man behind the counter knew exactly where to find it
- he knew about - and raised in conversation - the composer's rather sticky end
Paired with Welch’s Polka