Serenade for Strings (Suk)

Josef Suk's

Josef Suk (composer)

Josef Suk was a Czech composer and violinist.- Life :Suk was born in Křečovice. He studied at Prague Conservatory from 1885 to 1892, where he was a pupil of Antonín Dvořák and Antonín Bennewitz. In 1898, he married Dvořák's eldest daughter, Otilie Dvořáková , affectionately known as Otilka...

 Serenade for Strings in E flat major, Op. 6, was composed in 1892.

While Suk was studying under Antonín Dvořák

Antonín Dvorák

Antonín Leopold Dvořák was a Czech composer of late Romantic music, who employed the idioms of the folk music of Moravia and his native Bohemia. Dvořák’s own style is sometimes called "romantic-classicist synthesis". His works include symphonic, choral and chamber music, concerti, operas and many...

 at the Prague Conservatory

Prague Conservatory

Prague Conservatory, sometimes also Prague Conservatoire, in Czech Pražská konzervatoř, is a Czech secondary school in Prague dedicated to teaching the arts of music and theater acting.- Instruction :...

, Dvořák noticed a melancholy strain in much of Suk's music, and recommended he write some lighter and more cheerful music. Based on Dvořák's suggestion, Suk produced a serenade for strings.

Two movements were publicly conducted by Suk in late 1893 in Tabor

Tabor

-Places:* Mount Tabor * Tábor, Czech Republic** Taborite, member of a 15th century Czech religious group considered heretical by the Roman Catholic Church* Tabor, Slovenia, town and municipality...

. The first complete performance was on 25 February 1895, at the Prague Conservatory, conducted by Antonín Bennewitz

Antonín Bennewitz

Antonín Bennewitz was a Czech violinist, conductor and teacher. He was in a line of violinists that extended back to Giovanni Battista Viotti, and forward to Jan Kubelík and Wolfgang Schneiderhan....

, Suk's violin teacher at the Conservatory.

The serenade soon brought Suk considerable fame and Dvořák's longtime supporter, Johannes Brahms

Johannes Brahms

Johannes Brahms was a German composer and pianist, and one of the leading musicians of the Romantic period. Born in Hamburg, Brahms spent much of his professional life in Vienna, Austria, where he was a leader of the musical scene...

, endorsed its publication.

Structure

The serenade comprises four movements

Movement (music)

A movement is a self-contained part of a musical composition or musical form. While individual or selected movements from a composition are sometimes performed separately, a performance of the complete work requires all the movements to be performed in succession...

:

1. Andante con moto
2. Allegro ma non troppo e grazioso
3. Adagio
4. Allegro giocoso, ma non troppo presto