SERENADE FOR STRINGS, Opus 48
by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-1893)

composed:  1880

scored for:  string orchestra (first and second violins, violas, cellos, and basses)

premiered:  December 3, 1880, by a student orchestra at the Moscow Conservatory conducted by Nikolai Rubinstein

duration:  about 30 minutes

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MUSICAL ROMANTICISM is always janus-faced. It moves boldly beyond the past in search of new expressive forms and means. At the same time, however, every Romantic musician had a longing for that past.

       Tchaikovsky, for one, felt a particularly strong nostalgia for the time of Mozart, whose style he repeatedly tried to recapture, writing such works as the Rococo Variations to his Orrchestra Suite No. 4, given the nickname “Mozartiana.”

       At first sight thought, there seems to be a gulf between these varying styles of Tchiakovsky's output.  The gracefulness of his "Mozart" works contrasts sharply with the stormy passion of his great symphonies or the B-flat-minor piano concerto. Yet, in reality, intense dramaticism and flights into dreamworlds of bygone era are but opposite sides of the same coin — Romanticism writ large or small, tugging a heart full of emotion.

       The Serenade for Strings was a work especially dear to Tchaikovsky’s heart. He worked on it concurrently with the “1812 Overture," a commission he probably would have turned down had he been able to (both politics and money suggested his course forward). Yet Tchaikovsky made no bones about which of the two projects he really cared about. As he wrote in a letter to his patron, Nadezhda von Meck:  "You can imagine, beloved friend, that my muse has been benevolent of late, when I tell you that I have written two long works very rapidly: a festival overture and a Serenade in four movements for string orchestra. The overture will be very noisy. I wrote it without much warmth or enthusiasm; and therefore it has no great artistic value. The Serenade, on the contrary, I wrote from an inward impulse: I felt it; and I venture to hope that this work is not without artistic qualities."

       From what we know, Tchaikovsky first started sketching melodic ideas for something, without being sure whether he would turn them into a symphony or a string quartet. Only later did it become clear to him that the work should take the form of a suite for string orchestra. Eventually, Tchaikovsky decided to call it “Serenade.” The name itself shows an intention to evoke the era of Mozart, the greatest master of the serenade, who worked in century when "serenades" could take many shapes.

       Tchaikovsky's Serenade came four years after another famous work inspired by the 18th century: his Rococo Variations. The two are not dissimilar in spirit, but David Brown, in his multi-volume Tchaikovsky biography, makes an interesting distinction between them:  "Whereas the rococo stylizations represent the sort of music Mozart would have written if he had been of Tchaikovsky’s generation, the Serenade is a quasi-symphonic piece such as Tchaikovsky imagined he would have composed, had he lived in Mozart’s time. Thus Tchaikovsky’s own creative personality is never masked in this delightful new creation, and the first subject of the first movement has clear aspirations to become a waltz, while the second movement commits itself expressly to this thematic world in which Tchaikovsky always ranged so happily."

THE MUSIC

       In his letter to Madame von Meck, Tchaikovsky described the first movement as a deliberate imitation of Mozart’s manner. The title “Pezzo in forma di sonatina” [“Piece in sonatina form”] refers to the absence of a development section; thus this abbreviated sonata form is built only from contrats between the first theme and second theme, with modifying the musical material very far. Mozart used this form mainly in his own slow movements; it is also found in many of Rossini’s operatic overtures. In Tchaikovsky’s Serenade, the “sonatina” is preceded by a solemn introduction.  The “Allegro moderato” tempo starts with a lyrical first melody followed by a jauntier second theme. The solemn introduction returns at the end.

       "Waltz" second movement “and the Elegy” third movement are examples of that special kind of musical sweetness that only Tchaikovsky could provide.

       The last movement is based on two Russian folksongs. The first of these (in a slower tempo) is a boat-hauling song from the Volga River, taken from Mily Balakirev’s folk-music collection. The second is a street ditty from the Kolomna district, near Moscow. The two are linked with extreme ingenuity, as the last phrase of the first song is identical to the first phrase of the second (only the tempo is different). The second tune becomes the starting point of a vigorous sonata movement, this time complete with contrasting theme, development section, even a short fugato. The big surprise is reserved for the end: the introduction of the first movement reappears, and we suddenly realize that this solemn and dignified music consists of the very same notes as the light-hearted street ditty — differentiated only by tempo and harmonization.

       All four movements of the Serenade share a certain dance-like quality that is reminiscent of the style of Tchaikovsky’s great ballets. It was no coincidence that the Serenade itself was choreographed by the George Balanchine with great success. For Tchaikovsky, however, the Serenade was a concert piece — but one that he programmed with great frequency, at concerts both in Russia and abroad, as one of his personal favorites.

—program note by Peter Laki
    © The Cleveland Orchestra