Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky
Serenade for Strings
Though Tchaikovsky was a solidly romantic composer, one of his idols was
Mozart, whom he once referred to as "the Christ of music." Indeed,
Tchaikovsky wrote that a performance of Don Giovanni he attended at the age of
10 was what introduced him to the power of music to express deep emotion.
So it is no surprise that in September of 1880, at the same time he was
working on his thunderous 1812 Festival Overture, Tchaikovsky decided to write
an orchestral serenade that would serve as an homage to Mozart's own serenades.
Inspired, he completed the work relatively quickly and appeared much more
satisfied with it than its sister composition, the overture. As he wrote to his
patroness, Nadezhda von Meck, "The overture will be very showy and noisy,
but will have no artistic merit because I wrote it without warmth and without
love. But the Serenade, on the contrary, I wrote from inner compulsion. This is
a piece from the heart." Later he told von Meck, "I am violently in
love with this work and cannot wait for it to be played." It was premiered
in St. Petersburg in 1881 and met with instant success. Tchaikovsky even
received congratulations on the work from another of his musical heroes, pianist
and composer Anton Rubenstein.
The Serenade for Strings is not a truly classical piece in its musical
content -- it is as romantic as any of Tchaikovsky's other works, and unlike
Mozart's serenade for a small group of strings, Eine kleine Nachtmusik,
Tchaikovsky's serenade requires a full string choir to do justice to its
sonorities. But though it does not sound precisely like Mozart, Tchaikovsky
intended his work to be classical in form and spirit, especially in the stately
opening theme of the first movement, recapitulated at the close of the final
movement. This, he wrote to von Meck, "is my homage to Mozart; it is
intended to be an imitation of his style, and I should be delighted if I thought
I had in any way approached my model."
This first movement, Pezzo in forma di Sonatina, moves from the measured
Andante introduction to a simple, four-note theme in the Allegro that develops
into vigorous scale passages demonstrating the various orchestral colors
available within the strings alone. Yet this section, though brisk, is never
forced or rushed; the brilliant passages simply complement the lilting movement
of the Allegro theme.
The Valse of the second movement is Tchaikovsky's 19th-century answer to the
minuets of Mozart's serenades. This graceful dance seems never far from
Tchaikovsky's ballets; in fact the movement, with portions of the rest of the
work, was used by George Balanchine in his Serenade (1936). (Balanchine
eventually expanded his ballet to include Tchaikovsky's entire piece, although
with the second and third movements reversed.) Each string section takes a turn
carrying the dancing melody in counterpart to rhythmic lines from the other
sections. The movement ends in a gentle pianissimo, leading to the quietly
stated Elegia. Like the previous two movements, the third is build on a scale
passage, this one rising in quietly building fervor. The lower strings carry a
good portion of the songlike melody which, though called an elegy, is more
reflective than truly somber.
The Finale is subtitled Tema russo, and includes two Russian folk tunes, both
catalogued by composer and musicologist Mily Balakirev. The first, a slow tune
sung by Volga draymen, appears in the Andante introduction. The second is an
animated Russian dance, which Tchaikovsky scores at points with some quickly
pulsing, balalaika-like pizzicato in octaves. Contrasted with this second theme
is a third, lyrical motif by Tchaikovsky that provides broadly sweeping movement
against the vivacious dance. The theme from the first movement's Andante makes
its reappearance, then Tchaikovsky cleverly transforms the descending portion of
this stately theme into the pulsing descending scale of the dance, ending the
piece with vigor.
February 23, 2003
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