Tchaikovsky Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky ( ; 7 May 1840 – 6 November 1893) was a Russian composer during the Romantic period. He was the first Russian composer whose music made a lasting impression internationally. Tchaikovsky wrote some of the most popular ...

's Serenade for Strings in

C major C major is a major scale based on C, consisting of the pitches C, D, E, F, G, A, and B. C major is one of the most common keys used in music. Its key signature has no flats or sharps. Its relative minor is A minor and its parallel min ...

, 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.

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 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 a ...

, 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 George Balanchine (; Various sources: * * * * born Georgiy Melitonovich Balanchivadze;, Romanization of Georgian, : April 30, 1983) was a Georgian-American ballet choreographer, recognized as one of the most influential choreographers ...

ballet ''Serenade'' in 1934. * The waltz in the second movement was arranged for soprano and full orchestra for the 1945

MGM Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. (also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures, commonly shortened to MGM or MGM Studios) is an American Film production, film and television production and film distribution, distribution company headquartered ...

film '' Anchors Aweigh'' under the name " From the Heart of a Lonely Poet" and performed by

Kathryn Grayson Kathryn Grayson (born Zelma Kathryn Elisabeth Hedrick; February 9, 1922 – February 17, 2010) was an American actress and coloratura soprano. From the age of 12, Grayson trained as an opera singer. She was under contract to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer ...

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 Voice of America (VOA or VoA) is an international broadcasting network funded by the federal government of the United States that by law has editorial independence from the government. It is the largest and oldest of the American internation ...

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 ITV Channel Television, previously Channel Television, is a British television station which has served as the ITV (TV network), ITV contractor for the Channel Islands since 1962. It is based in Jersey and broadcasts regional programmes for i ...

in the 1980s. * Excerpts from the score were used in the 2005 ballet ''

Anna Karenina ''Anna Karenina'' ( rus, Анна Каренина, p=ˈanːə kɐˈrʲenʲɪnə) is a novel by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy, first published in book form in 1878. Tolstoy called it his first true novel. It was initially released in serial in ...

'', choreographed by

Boris Eifman Boris Eifman (Борис Яковлевич Эйфман; born 22 July 1946) is a Russian choreographer and artistic director. He has done more than fifty ballet productions. Biography Eifman was born in Rubtsovsk, Siberia, where his engineer ...

. * The waltz was used in the

Google Doodle Google Doodle is a special, temporary alteration of the logo on Google's homepages intended to commemorate holidays, events, achievements, and historical figures. The first Google Doodle honored the 1998 edition of the long-running annual Bu ...

for the 100th anniversary of the completion of the

Trans-Siberian Railway The Trans-Siberian Railway, historically known as the Great Siberian Route and often shortened to Transsib, is a large railway system that connects European Russia to the Russian Far East. Spanning a length of over , it is the longest 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 ''Squid Game'' () is a South Korean Utopian and dystopian fiction, dystopian Survival film, survival Thriller (genre)#Television, thriller horror television series created, written and directed by Hwang Dong-hyuk for Netflix. The series revol ...

''. * 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."

References

External links

*
Tchaikovsky ResearchPerformance of Serenade for Strings
by A Far Cry from the

Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum is an art museum in Boston, Massachusetts, which houses significant examples of European, Asian, and American art. Its collection includes paintings, sculpture, tapestries, and decorative arts. It was found ...

MP3 MP3 (formally MPEG-1 Audio Layer III or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III) is a coding format for digital audio developed largely by the Fraunhofer Society in Germany under the lead of Karlheinz Brandenburg. It was designed to greatly reduce the amount ...

format {{Authority control Orchestral compositions by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

1880 compositions Compositions in C major Compositions for string orchestra Compositions using folk songs Suites by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky