Programme Notes

Back to Concert Info
Printer Friendly Version

Sibelius: Two Serenades for Violin and Orchestra

Sibelius composed his Two Serenades in 1912 and 1913. They were premiered in Helsinki on December 8, 1915, during a concert celebrating his fiftieth birthday. He conducted the premiere himself, and Richard Burgin was the soloist. The work runs approximately 14 minutes in performance, and is scored for solo violin,

In the summer of in 1912, Sibelius completed three Sonatinas for solo piano, Op. 67. He next planned a series of serenades for solo instrument and orchestra. One would feature a pair of clarinets, another would evoke the elegant, entertaining world of the many pieces with similar names (serenade, divertimento, cassation) to which Mozart had devoted so much time and energy. In the end, he composed just two serenades, both featuring solo violin.

He completed the first on November 23. After a trip to Copenhagen, where Symphony No. 4 met with as puzzled a reaction as it had at the world premiere in Helsinki in April 1911, he returned home and completed the second serenade on February 10, 1913.

In them he cast a nostalgic glance backward to the time in his youth when he dreamed of a career as a solo violinist. As with the Humoresques for the same forces that he created a few years later, their poignant emotional contents belie their light-hearted title.

The first serenade, in D Major, is the airier in texture and the more positive in feeling of the two, although it is far from carefree. Sibelius rapidly and seamlessly shifts moods as the piece unfolds. The solo writing avoids virtuoso demands, Sibelius preferring instead to make the violin virtually one member of the ensemble, rather than a star performer.

The second serenade, in G Minor, is single-mindedly melancholy in tone. Sibelius twice offered more animated, yet brief and still anxious contrast with a lively theme introduced by the violin.

Programme Note by Don Anderson

© Copyright 2010 Toronto Symphony Orchestra