The ''Little Serenade'' (in Swedish: ), Op. 12, is a four-

movement Movement may refer to: Common uses * Movement (clockwork), the internal mechanism of a timepiece * Motion, commonly referred to as movement Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * "Movement" (short story), a short story by Nancy Fu ...

suite for

string orchestra A string orchestra is an orchestra consisting solely of a string section made up of the bowed strings used in Western Classical music. The instruments of such an orchestra are most often the following: the violin, which is divided into first ...

written in 1934 by Swedish composer

Lars-Erik Larsson Lars-Erik Vilner Larsson (15 May 190827 December 1986) was a Swedish composer, conductor, radio producer, and educator. He wrote three of the most popular works (each a suite) in Swedish art music: ''A Winter's Tale'' (; 1937–1938), the '' Pas ...

. The piece premiered in

Gävle Gävle () is a city in Sweden, the seat of Gävle Municipality and the capital of Gävleborg County. It had 77,586 inhabitants in 2020, which makes it the 13th most populated city in Sweden. It is the oldest city in the historical Norrland (Swede ...

, Sweden, on 7 March 1934 with Larsson conducting the Gävleborg Orchestral Society. On 5 April 1934 at the

International Society for Contemporary Music The International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) is a music organization that promotes contemporary classical music. The organization was established in Salzburg in 1922 as Internationale Gesellschaft für Neue Musik (IGNM) following the ...

(ISCM) World Music Days in

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico an ...

Hermann Scherchen Hermann Scherchen (21 June 1891 – 12 June 1966) was a German conductor. Life Scherchen was born in Berlin. Originally a violist, he played among the violas of the Bluthner Orchestra of Berlin while still in his teens. He conducted in Riga ...

conducted Larsson's Sinfonietta to considerable acclaim, scoring for the composer the first international success of his career. In response,

Universal Edition Universal Edition (UE) is a classical music publishing firm. Founded in 1901 in Vienna, they originally intended to provide the core classical works and educational works to the Austrian market (which had until then been dominated by Leipzig-base ...

in Vienna signed a contract with the composer and published a number of his early works, among them the Sinfonietta, the ''Little Serenade'', and the Concert Overture No. 2 (; Op. 13, 1934).

Structure

The ''Little Serenade'', which lasts about 11 minutes, is in four movements. They are as follows:

Instrumentation

The Sinfonietta is scored for the following instruments: *

String String or strings may refer to: *String (structure), a long flexible structure made from threads twisted together, which is used to tie, bind, or hang other objects Arts, entertainment, and media Films * ''Strings'' (1991 film), a Canadian anim ...

violin The violin, sometimes known as a ''fiddle'', is a wooden chordophone (string instrument) in the violin family. Most violins have a hollow wooden body. It is the smallest and thus highest-pitched instrument (soprano) in the family in regular ...

viola The viola ( , also , ) is a string instrument that is bow (music), bowed, plucked, or played with varying techniques. Slightly larger than a violin, it has a lower and deeper sound. Since the 18th century, it has been the middle or alto voice of ...

cello The cello ( ; plural ''celli'' or ''cellos'') or violoncello ( ; ) is a Bow (music), bowed (sometimes pizzicato, plucked and occasionally col legno, hit) string instrument of the violin family. Its four strings are usually intonation (music), t ...

s, and

double bass The double bass (), also known simply as the bass () (or #Terminology, by other names), is the largest and lowest-pitched Bow (music), bowed (or plucked) string instrument in the modern orchestra, symphony orchestra (excluding unorthodox addit ...

es Universal Edition published the suite in 1936.

Recordings

The sortable table below lists commercially available recordings of the ''Little Serenade'':

Notes, references, and sources

; ; ; * * {{portal bar, Classical music, Music Compositions by Lars-Erik Larsson 20th-century classical music Classical music in Sweden 1934 compositions Orchestral suites