In September 1996, Andrew March made sketches of what would become his symphonic “tone pictures”,[9] but it was only when he had knowledge of the Masterprize composing competition that he was spurred on with the compositional process.

[15] His winning work, Marine – à travers les arbres, is a lush, impressionistic symphonic poem with overtones of Delius and Debussy.It combines lyricism with atmospheric effect, evoking a picture of tranquillity.Marine – à travers les arbres received critical acclaim both during the Masterprize competition and in reviews of the gala final.

[8][12][16] Rob Cowan, writing in The Independent in the wake of the Masterprize final, made it clear he would not have chosen the piece as the winning work: As to the winning Marine – à travers les arbres, I could quite imagine March climbing a Guernsey cliff-top to embrace the sky: wave on wave of hedonistic harmony broke from the stage, but was it prize-winning material?

[20] Marine – à travers les arbres was first recorded in 1997 by the BBC Philharmonic with conductor Philip Ellis for the semi-finals of the Masterprize Composing Competition.

[22][23][24] The covermount CD of the six finalist works was one of the competition's methods for capturing the votes of the public, enabling the magazine's worldwide readership of over 200,000 to take part.

[27][citation needed] As part of the European Union Youth Orchestra (EUYO) tour of 1998,[28] Marine – à travers les arbres received repeat performances at concerts in Düsseldorf, Gävle (Sweden) and at EXPO' 98, Lisbon.