Serenade for Strings (Elgar)

Serenade for Strings Op. 20
Performed by the United States Army Band Strings ensemble
Problems playing this file? See media help.

The Serenade for String Orchestra in E minor, Op. 20, is an early piece in three short movements, by Edward Elgar. It was written in March 1892 and first performed privately in that year; its public premiere was in 1896. It became one of Elgar's most popular compositions, and has been recorded many times.

Background and first performances

In 1892 Elgar had yet to achieve the public recognition that came to him by the end of the decade. His compositions did not earn him enough to support his wife and daughter; he earned most of his living conducting local musical ensembles and teaching in his native Worcestershire, while continuing to compose.[1]

The Serenade for Strings may be a revised version of an earlier set of Three Sketches for Strings, performed in May 1888 at a concert of the Worcestershire Musical Union. The sketches had the individual titles "Spring Song" (Allegro), "Elegy" (Adagio) and Finale (Presto); the manuscript of the Three Sketches does not survive, and their connection with the Serenade is conjectural.[2] The Serenade was the first of Elgar's compositions with which he professed himself happy. He wrote to a friend about the three movements, "I like 'em (the first thing I ever did)".[3] The critic Ernest Newman wrote in a 1906 study of Elgar that the Serenade and the concert overture Froissart (1890) were the only two works of importance among the composer's output before the mid 1890s: "the rest are experiments in various smaller forms – songs, pieces for piano and violin, part songs, slight pieces for small orchestra, &c".[4]

The work was first given in a private performance in 1892 by the Worcester Ladies' Orchestral Class, with the composer conducting. His first attempt to interest a publisher in the piece was rebuffed on the grounds that though it was "very good", "this class of music is practically unsaleable",[5] but he found a publisher in 1893.[6] The Serenade received its first public performance in Antwerp, Belgium on 21 July 1896,[1] but was not given publicly in Britain until 1899. Two movements were played at a concert in the Grand Pump Room at Bath in January of that year;[7] the complete work was played at a concert in York on 5 April 1899, conducted by Thomas Tertius Noble;[8][n 1] and the composer conducted it at an all-Elgar concert in the seaside resort New Brighton on 16 July 1899.[12] The work is dedicated to the organ builder and amateur musician Edward W. Whinfield, who had encouraged the composer in his early years.[13]

Structure

The work typically plays for between 12 and 13 minutes in performance.[n 2]

1. Allegro piacevole. The metronome mark is ♩. = 96. The gently rocking 6
8 metre of the first movement, the direction "piacevole" (pleasantly/agreeably) and avoidance of harmonic tension suggest a cradle song, according to the analyst Daniel Grimley, and an aubade according to Elgar's biographer Michael Kennedy.[15][16] The movement opens with a figure in the violas that recurs throughout:

Opening theme, for violas

The main theme is heard from the third bar:

Main theme, violin line

The middle section is an arching melody, moving briefly into the minor, before the coda presents a new theme derived from the opening subject, which itself returns to bring the movement to a quiet conclusion.[15]

2. Larghetto. The second movement, marked ♪=80, is in 2
4 time. After a brief introduction the main theme is what Newman describes as "a long and flexible melody sung by the first violins … one of the finest and most sustained that ever came from Elgar's pen":[17]

Main theme, violin line

The introductory theme returns at the end of the movement as a peroration.[17]

3. Allegretto. The finale begins in 12
8 time, ♩. = 92, changing to 6
8 when Elgar reintroduces the main theme of the first movement to bring the work to a conclusion.

Recordings

The Serenade has become one of Elgar’s most popular works, particularly with amateur groups, youth ensembles, and chamber orchestras,[2] and is among the most recorded of his compositions.

Orchestra Conductor Year
London Philharmonic Sir Edward Elgar 1933
New Symphony Orchestra of London Anthony Collins 1952
Concert Hall Symphony Orchestra Walter Goehr 1952
Royal Philharmonic Sir Thomas Beecham 1955
London Symphony Lawrance Collingwood 1955
Royal Philharmonic George Weldon 1963
Sinfonia of London Sir John Barbirolli 1963
Philharmonia Sir Malcolm Sargent 1966
London Philharmonic Sir Adrian Boult 1968
Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields Neville Marriner 1968
Bournemouth Symphony Norman Del Mar 1968
English Chamber Daniel Barenboim 1975
Royal Philharmonic Ainslee Cox 1975
Orchestra of St John's Smith Square John Lubbock 1975
Scottish Baroque Ensemble Leonard Friedman 1980
Melbourne Symphony Leonard Dommett 1982
London Philharmonic Vernon Handley 1983
City of London Sinfonia Richard Hickox 1984
Bournemouth Sinfonietta George Hurst 1985
I Musici – 1986
Orpheus – 1986
London Philharmonic Richard Armstrong 1986
English Chamber Yehudi Menuhin 1986
New York Virtuosi Chamber Symphony Kenneth Klein 1987
Royal Philharmonic Andrew Litton 1988
London Chamber Christopher Warren-Green 1989
Capella Istropolitana Adrian Leaper 1989
London Philharmonic Leonard Slatkin 1989
Baltimore Symphony David Zinman 1989
Royal Philharmonic Sir Charles Groves 1990
BBC Symphony Andrew Davis 1991
Australian Chamber Orchestra Richard Tognetti 1992
Royal Philharmonic Barry Wordsworth 1993
Philharmonia Giuseppe Sinopoli 1994
Budapest Strings Karoly Botvay 1994
English String Orchestra William Boughton 1995
London Festival Orchestra Ross Pople 1997
English Chamber Paul Goodwin 2001
Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart Sir Roger Norrington 2001
Rotterdam Chamber Orchestra Conrad van Alphen 2003
Philharmonia Sir Andrew Davis 2007
Wales Camerata Owain Arwel Hughes 2007
Sydney Symphony Vladimir Ashkenazy 2009
Orchestra of The Swan David Curtis 2014
English Chamber Julian Lloyd Webber 2015
Ostrobothnian Chamber Orchestra Sakari Oramo 2016
BBC Symphony Edward Gardner 2018
Zürcher Kammerorchester Daniel Hope 2020
Anima Musicæ Chamber László Horváth 2021

See also

Notes, references and sources

Notes

  1. ^ This first complete performance in Britain has been overlooked by several writers about Elgar, including Michael Kennedy,[9] but it is well documented. The Yorkshire Herald recorded, "The strings alone had their opportunity in the three movements of a serenade by Edward Elgar … The subsidiary strings are [given] parts of a more distinctive character than usual".[10] The Yorkshire Gazette reported, "Elgar's 'Serenade for Strings – Allegro, Larghetto, Allegretto' was skilfully performed".[11]
  2. ^ The composer took 12:09 in his 1933 recording; Sir John Barbirolli's 1963 recording takes 13:05, Sir Adrian Boult (1968) takes 12:14, and Sir Mark Elder (2008) takes 12:57.[14]

References

  1. ^ a b McVeagh, Diana. "Elgar, Sir Edward"', Grove Music Online, Oxford University Press, 2001. Retrieved 22 August 2021 (subscription required)
  2. ^ a b Grimley, p. 120
  3. ^ Moore, p. 124
  4. ^ Newman, pp. 1–2
  5. ^ Moore, p. 160
  6. ^ Moore, p. 170
  7. ^ "The Pump Room Concerts", Bath Chronicle, 19 January 1899, p. 2
  8. ^ "York Symphony Orchestra", Yorkshire Gazette, 8 April 1899, p. 6; and "York Symphony Orchestra", Yorkshire Herald, 8 April 1899, p. 13
  9. ^ Kennedy, p. 343
  10. ^ "York Symphony Orchestra", Yorkshire Herald, 8 April 1899, p. 13
  11. ^ "York Symphony Orchestra", Yorkshire Gazette, 8 April 1899, p. 6
  12. ^ "Notes on Music", The Liverpool Mercury, 1 April 1899, p. 7
  13. ^ Kennedy, p. 341; and Moore, p. 89
  14. ^ OCLC 31793357, OCLC 15161086, OCLC 855948218 and OCLC 937854160
  15. ^ a b Grimley, p. 121
  16. ^ Kennedy, Michael (1973). Notes to EMI LP ASD 2906
  17. ^ a b Newman, p. 9

Sources