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Janissary March is featured on the CD, “The Story of Percussion in the Orchestra”.

By the late 1700s percussion instruments such as cymbals, the triangle, tambourine and bass drum began to appear in music composed for European orchestras, largely due to the influence of Turkish Janissary military bands.  in the year 1782, after hearing Janissary music, the young composer, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, composed an opera about a sultan of the Turkish empire.  Mozart called his opera, “The Abduction from the Seraglio” (a Turkish palace) and in the orchestra he added cymbals, a triangle and a bass drum to give his music the sound of a Turkish Janissary band.  This Janissary March features these percussion instruments along with woodwind instruments such as oboes and clarinets, which were also heard in the Janissary bands and brought into the European orchestra by Mozart.   The melody is biased on music composed by Mozart for another opera, “The Marriage of Figaro.”