March in C for clavier

Marches served various functions in 18^th-century society. For one, they provided a festive background for the entry of rulers. In opera, they might also be used to bridge gaps in the action or provide short breaks needed to rearrange the stage. Apart from these uses, Mozart also included marches in multi-movement works such as cassations and serenades. He often wrote the marches into a manuscript independent of the score of the work for which they were intended. This made it not only easier to reuse a march for another occasion, but also gave the copyist more time to extract parts since the marches usually had to be memorized to allow the musicians to approach the venue of an outdoor performance or to depart from it. This accounts for the fact that the marches usually refrain from the use of timpani although they are found together with the trumpets in the serenades to which they belong. In some instances, Mozart composed marches for keyboard instruments or prepared keyboard reductions of orchestral marches.