While the serenade, with its light-footed, entertaining character, was beneath the notice of the New German composers in the Liszt and Wagner camp, Johannes Brahms turned to the genre precisely because of its inherent return to tradition and to Baroque and Classical forms. The Serenade No. 1 was composed while he was preoccupied with the works of Mozart and Haydn, at a time when he was clearly beginning to distance himself from the aesthetic of the „New Germans“.
Robert Fuchs and Antonín Dvořák, two composers highly regarded (and supported) by Brahms, also identified themselves through their works with this serenade tradition and placed their aesthetic ideas about structural clarity and an accessible tonal language at the service of the Italian concept „al sereno“, which roughly translates as „under a clear blue sky“. Fuchs especially, whose extraordinarily popular compositions in the genre earned him the nickname „Serenade Fuchs“, was regarded by many of his contemporaries as a Brahms imitator. His conscious traditionalism was once caricatured by the conductor Josef Hellmesberger, in reference to several obvious quotes from Johann Strauß in his Serenade No. 5, in the remark:„Fuchs, die hast du ganz gestohlen“ („Fuchs, you have stolen the lot“ - a pun on a German children's song).
Robert Fuchs (1847–1927)
Serenade No. 2 in C major for String Orchestra, Op. 14 (1876)
Antonín Dvořák (1841–1904)
Serenade in E major for String Orchestra, Op. 22 (1875)
– Interval –
Johannes Brahms (1833–1897)
Serenade No.1 in D major for Full Orchestra, Op. 11 (1857–60)
Festival Sinfonietta Linz
Howard Griffiths | Conductor