Serenade for Strings (Tchaikovsky)

Template:Short descriptionTchaikovsky's Serenade for Strings in C major, Op. 48, was composed in 1880. It was first performed October 30, 1881 in St. Petersburg at a Russian Musical Society concert conducted by Eduard Nápravník. Template:Template other

Form

Serenade for Strings has 4 movements:

On the second page of the score, Tchaikovsky wrote, "The larger number of players in the string orchestra, the more this shall be in accordance with the author's wishes."

Premieres

The Serenade was given a private performance at the Moscow Conservatory on 3 December 1880. Its first public performance was in St Petersburg on 30 October 1881 under Eduard Napravnik.

References in other contexts

• The score was used as the foundation of the George Balanchine ballet Serenade in 1934.
• The waltz in the second movement was arranged for soprano and full orchestra for the 1945 MGM film Anchors Aweigh under the name "From the Heart of a Lonely Poet" and performed by Kathryn Grayson with José Iturbi conducting the MGM studio orchestra.
• The piece incidentally accompanied the final countdown for the Trinity atomic bomb test July 16, 1945, when it was being broadcast by a Voice of America station on the same frequency being used to transmit test communications.
• The waltz section was also used as the startup theme for British television station Channel Television in the 1980s.
• Excerpts from the score were used in the 2005 ballet Anna Karenina, choreographed by Boris Eifman.
• The waltz was used in the Google Doodle for the 100th anniversary of the completion of the Trans-Siberian Railway in 2016.
• The first movement (Pezzo in forma di sonatina: Andante non troppo — Allegro moderato) is the motif of Stefano Valentini, one of the main antagonists in the game The Evil Within 2.
• Excerpts from the score were used during NBC's broadcast of a 1983 NFL playoff game between the San Diego Chargers and the Pittsburgh Steelers as a lead in to commercial breaks.
• The second movement was used a few times in the 2021 South Korean survival drama TV series Squid Game.
• The waltz in the second movement is featured in "On Wine: How to Select & Serve," which in turn is sampled on the Beastie Boys "The Blue Nun" from "Check Your Head."

External links

• Serenade for Strings: Scores at the International Music Score Library Project
• Tchaikovsky Research
• Performance of Serenade for Strings by A Far Cry from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in MP3 format