CODE-NAME“SERENADE”

There was nothing else for it, but to take the well-nigh insurmountable hurdle set by Beethoven. And what is more, without once again falling flat on his face, as had been the case during the second performance of his Piano Concerto Op.15 in 1859. Even before undertaking this daring venture, Johannes Brahms had already received the highest of praise. In his renowned essay “Neue Bahnen”, Robert Schumann had announced him to the world of music as the long-awaited “designated” and legitimate successor to the all-powerful Beethoven. The psychological pressure on Brahms must have been enormous following this article. Neither did his own character make matters any easier for himself; after all, he was considered a highly scrupulous composer.
In those days, the genre of the symphony was the standard by which “great composers” were assessed: i.e. the genre which had been taken to new heights by Beethoven. In order to acquire the technical and artisanal skills necessary in order to compose a symphony, Brahms had concentrated mainly on the older styles and forms of composition during the 1850s. He had studied counterpoint, and composed dance forms in the style of the early 18th century, as well as canons, preludes and fugues. From 1854 – 1858, Brahms’ compositional activities slowed down enormously. Not until his first steady appointment in Detmold in 1857 did the situation stabilize somewhat. Nevertheless, his approach to the symphony was along a rocky path, pitted with self-doubt. Alongside his Piano Concerto Op.15, the Serenades Op.11 and Op.16 comprise the first orchestral works written by Brahms. One could perhaps describe this reaching back to a genre which had already been historically superseded as an attempt to gradually develop the future of the symphony by means of a compositional detour to the past. Thus, one could designate the “Symphony” campaign by the code-name “Serenade”. After all, the works written by Mozart could be roughly considered the apogee of the Serenade, i.e. even preceding Beethoven’s time (!).
To this day, though, there is still no reliable evidence on hand to prove that Brahms had from the first consciously conceived of both serenades as “symphonies in disguise”, and had only categorized them at a later stage during the composition – so to speak, after admitting his failure – as serenades. He had planned the Op.16 as a serenade from the start; and he had at first conceived of the Op.11 as a four-movement octet, to which he added two more movements only at a later date, and in 1859 revised the work for a larger orchestral scoring.
Therefore, when examining the compositions, one really ought to judge them by the standards of the serenade genre, and remove them from the overpowering shadow of the symphony. The serenade itself is a disparate genre, which combines the most diverse types of movements, thus appearing to be a kind of hermaphrodite. Alongside the supposedly typical light and unpretentious tone of the serenade, Op.11 and Op.16 both also contain numerous powerful elements stemming from the symphonic style of composition.
The Serenade in D, Op.11 for large orchestra was composed between 1857 – 1859, and the Serenade in A, Op.16 dates from 1858 – 1859. Characteristic of both works is the symmetrical structure, which is spread in one case over five movements, and in the other, over six. In both Serenades, the slow movement occupies the central position, whereas the outer movements are the most expansive parts of the composition. In Op.16 the violins are totally absent, therefore a 10-part wind movement is offset by just a three-part string movement. This gives a special tone to the chamber music-like character of the composition.
This reaching back to the Viennese Classicism as personified by Haydn and Mozart is especially noticeable in the first movement of the work in D, in which Brahms clearly quotes from Haydn’s Symphony No. 104. However, these are not isolated quotes: on the contrary, they are more like tiny excerpts borrowed and embedded in his own style, which are then developed individually. In this respect, the tone of the serenade and the style of the symphony are well-matched.

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