Tchaikovsky: Serenade for Strings in C major, Op.48      

Pezzo in forma di Sonatina:- Andante non troppo – Allegro moderato – Andante non troppo
Walzer:- Moderato. Tempo di Valse        
Élégie:- Larghetto elegiaco
Finale (Tema Russo):- Andante – Allegro con spirito

The Tchaikovsky bibliography, although now fairly extensive, had not previously been particularly sensitive or perceptive as to the quintessential qualities and characteristics which lie at the heart of his music. This is partly the fault of the faithful Modest, whose three-volume biography of his older brother (1900-2) sensationalises much of his life and personality, suppresses information crucial to a real understanding of the man, and is not always reliable in its purely musical judgment. Since so much subsequent critical biography and commentary has inevitably been influenced by – indeed, has been largely dependant on – what might have been expected to be uniquely authoritative and authentic material, the accepted view of the composer has until recently been somewhat of an amalgam of the two brothers’ personalities: the composer as his brother might have liked him to be, perhaps? Fortunately a new generation of Tchaikovsky research and scholarship is going a long way towards redressing the balance, and our gratitude is due to the professors David Brown and Edward Garden, amongst others, for applying the corrective – and also to the conductor David Lloyd-Jones in his illuminating forewords to the latest editions of Eulenburg miniature scores.

There is little doubt that Tchaikovsky’s life was beset with emotional difficulties (often arising from his sexuality); that his work is often a medium for self expression; and that the music itself can and does provoke extreme emotional response in players and listeners alike. But his compositions truly are far from being “so much the fruit of the emotional élan of the moment”, as the late (and prejudiced) Martin Cooper would have us believe. Neither did he “only theorise when he was hard put to it” (ibid): Dr. Brown has convincingly demonstrated what a complete professional Tchaikovsky was, and how masterly was the sheer technical level of his writing (not surprising when Mozart and Mendelssohn were two principal models). Both he and Prof Garden also show him to be a true Russian composer, as nationalistic (in certain works, at least) as any of “The Five” – witness the finale of this Serenade, based as it is on a Russian folk tune and developed in the Glinka-inspired “changing background” technique (ie the background is varied, rather than the melody itself). They have also explained how Tchaikovsky – like Mozart and Beethoven before him – was essentially a dramatic composer; and if (as one eminent contemporary conductor proclaims) the latter wrote nine operas in addition to Fidelio, a similar case could also be made for Tchaikovsky’s own symphonies – amongst which the Serenade for Strings might have been numbered, since this music was originally conceived for full orchestra. So we should not be surprised to learn of the composer’s stated preference for “the larger the string orchestra the better”! But we should also not be surprised to hear – interspersed within passages of such deep sonority that a Russian cathedral choir is brought to mind – a delicacy and a lightness of touch whose origins truly lie in an earlier era, when the elegance, grace, and finesse of dance forms were the true fundamentals of musical style.

© Alan George
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