Serenade for Strings

Pyotr Tchaikovsky’s (1840-93) personal life was marked by fervent emotions: the sadness of losing his beloved mother at age 14, being uprooted to new cities, professional frustrations, a failed marriage that should never have been, and—according to recent scholarship—a forced “suicide of honor” after being found guilty of seducing a young nobleman. Quite early, however, Tchaikovsky developed the means of channeling these forces into music. In 1880 he wrote two very different works that neatly summarize the many facets of his style. On one hand, we have the bombastic 1812 Overture, a firecracker (literally) exploding with bravura string playing and cymbal crashes. On the other hand, the polished and occasionally introverted String Serenade in C major. The composer never derived much joy from the former work, but the latter remained one of his favored and most accomplished pieces from a fallow period in his creative life.
The Serenade begins with an impassioned chorale theme: strident and full of vigor, it functions like a summons. The mood quickly recedes into a more intimate space, and a series of drawn-out half cadences make clear that this whole passage is nothing more than an introduction to the spirited main theme yet to come. From that point on, Tchaikovsky plays out a conventional sonata form structure minus development; he intended this movement as an homage to Mozart’s own serenades. The second theme, marked by steady sixteenth notes, brings in touches of light counterpoint. Careful listeners will detect echoes of the famous Piano Concerto in the transition back to the main theme. At the end, the movement comes round again to the opening chorale, thus capping the whole structure with a processional feel and circular structure not unlike those found in opera or—better yet—ballet.
Perhaps the best loved portion of the entire Serenade is the second-movement Waltz, this from a composer immortalized by his dance music; it is also the shortest movement of the four. People unfamiliar with Tchaikovsky may find themselves carried aloft by the grace of the theme; others find confirmation that his “Russian” waltzes lose nothing in comparison to great Viennese examples by Strauss or Brahms. Particularly engaging are his use of pizzicato in the lower strings and the contrasting episodes.
The charm of the following Elegy is more subtle, perhaps more closely tied to details of structural or harmonic interest. Much of the movement is based on a wedge-shaped progression, in which higher and lower voices move outward in opposite directions (treble rises while the bass falls). From close proximity, the tonal space quickly expands to encompass a great distance between highest and lowest pitches. What is more, Tchaikovsky clearly enjoyed the device and used it four times without alteration at the start—achieving a degree of almost religious fervor. The movement's next theme recollects the preceding waltz (note again the pizzicato), though it is made more complex by constant two-against-three rhythms. Tchaikovsky carefully dismantles the theme, leading back to a reprise of the opening wedge played even more reverentially (with mutes).
The finale carries the designation Theme russe or “Russian theme”—as if we haven't had those already! Perhaps the Russianness of theme is carried more overtly. Tchaikovsky claimed he modeled the tune on a worker's song heard while taking a trip down the Volga. Some critics find this finale to be banal and the weakest of the four movements. I cannot agree. The gradual coming to life of the theme, including Tchaikovsky's use of the same pitch (D) to end the Elegy and begin the Finale, accords perfectly with the dramatic ethos of so much symphonic music of the day. Moreover, he enlivens the folk spirit with snatches with contrasting material; the full-blown second theme offers a solo song for cello. One look at the development section, with its clear echoes of Tchaikovsky's symphonies, confirms that this Serenade is no lightweight. Its ambitions extend far beyond precedents within the genre. And those who balk at the last-minute reprise of the Serenade's opening chorale neglect both contemporaneous examples, like Dvořák's masterful Serenade for Strings (1875), and the general aesthetic of circularity espoused by much 19th-century music (not to mention literature, philosophy, etc.). Capping our assessment of the finale's great merit, one must point out its organicism. The Theme russe is essentially a variation on the opening chorale, sharing the very same falling melodic outline C-B-A-G. Thus, when the chorale comes back after the Theme russe, it dovetails seamlessly, allowing the full momentum of the Serenade to carry unabated into a brilliant coda.

(c) Jason Stell