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Berlioz' Hungarian March appears on every audition because it shows so much about a player. Not only do we need to play this excerpt with strong orchestral fortissimo, but it needs to be done cleanly, without blasting or blatting, and with the tempo never dragging. A tall order, to be sure.
Begin bars 1-2 truly "piano." Make a slight crescendo in bars 3-4 (remember, you are representing an army getting closer and closer). I always breathe where marked - only after dotted notes, and, in the case of an emergency, after tied notes. The octave jumps in measures 10 and 13 sometimes cause problems. We must first determine if the lower octave note (the A and F) are either the end of a phrase or a pickup into a new phrase. I feel the notes serve BOTH functions, therefore a breath before or after them robs the notes of one or the other function. In measure 16, drive the last three eighth notes into the downbeat of measure 17 (those four notes are the theme you play in measures 6 and 7) - sort of an "overdrive" into measure 17 to jumpstart the end of the passage. Don't breath after measure 21 - it is tempting, but it is much more impressive if you don't. Be careful not to "smack" the second beat of measure 23 and remember to keep the tempo up right to the end.
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